Framedlight

Following the visit to Muncaster it didn't take long to get to St Bees, a rather desolate place I thought with a ragged hotel and a caravan site next to the shore. But still it was a break! We installed Anne in to the hotel which was full of a coach load of Saga customers, and we hitched up in the caravan site. We decided to go to Egremont to get our supper and ended up in the only Indian restaurant in town. The decoration was strange comprising of anaglypta panels of different colours. Perhaps they had bought a number of the little pots and not actually made their minds up as to which colour they wanted. But the food was actually superb and the restauranteur very eager to please, well we were the only people there. In fact it was probably one of the best Indian restaurants I have been to, for the food anyway. The next morning, as we were parked next to the shore I decided to get up and do some dawn shots. I was eager but the sunrise not so keen, but having been there at 5.45 am I...

I had my, new to me, infrared converted camera with me and Muncaster castle seemed a very good subject for infrared. As well as the castle itself the wooded grounds are extensive and the views over the hills breathtaking. The foliage was young and soft, ideal for infrared photography.

Rene and I went back to her house in Milnthorpe after she had had her knee replacement surgery and  had spent a few weeks with us in Arkesden. I stayed with her for a couple of days to do some shopping and make sure everything was OK. The Fuji XE-1 went on a couple of minor excursions, first to Dallam Towers, the deer park just down the road and then to Arnside, on the banks of Morecambe Bay, where the light was getting low. This seems to be my stomping ground when in this area. I messed around a bit and took straight pictures, mixtures of infrared and colour and multiple exposure pictures. In the first multiple exposure again there is the strange magenta colouration of the sky. I think the sunsets in this group stand out as overblown, compared to the more delicate tones of the others.

We spent the weekend with Alan's mum who lives in Milnthorpe on the southern tip of Cumbria. On Saturday we decided to go for a trip round a part of the Lakes I had not visited before. We made a circuitous journey through Ambleside and Keswick, around the western shore of Derwentwater, over the Honister pass, past Buttermere and Crummockwater to Cockermouth. There we visited the house Wordsworth was born in and came home late via a more straightforward route. The weather started out wet but as we went over the pass the rain turned to snow and shrouded the hills in mist. Very cold but atmospheric. Here are the photographs from that trip, starting at Derwentwater. I really like the effect the snow has given to two of the Honister Pass photographs I have a trial version of Heliconfocus loaded and have tried to do some stacked focus landscapes, without much success. The Derwentwater picture I hadn't actually needed to stack but when I ran about 4 pictures through Helicon I got ...