Framedlight

I seem to have taken a long holiday from posting anything on my blog, so a pre New Year resolution I hope will put me back on track again. Last week saw some fog in Arkesden as the weather changed from cold to damp and mild, a typical November day. The trees looked mysterious in the gloom and the skeletons of plants stood out from the mist.

We had camped in the village of Long Sutton. On the Sunday morning Alan left early to take part in a cycle sportive starting in Langport. I was going to spend the day idly walking and photographing. The morning the mist hung over the fields and it promised a fine day. The cattle slowly walked back over the field after milking and all was right with the world.

Early the next morning we reached the top of the Col de l'Iseran. At 2,770m it is almost the highest paved road in the French Alps. I say almost as the road climbing over the Col de la Bonnette, further south than the Iseran rises to 2715m, but a loop has been created to take in the top of the mountain, supposedly to top the Iseran at 2802m! It is bare, bleak and rocky at the top of the Col de l'Iseran, and when we were there the mountains were full of cloud. There is a stone church which fits into the rugged terrain and the laybys had a number of old sports cars in them, driving the Route des Grandes Alpes. We had now passed over the watershed from the Val de l'Iseran to the Val de l'Arc. Here are the pictures. The first is taken on the way up to the top of the col and the last is a panorama, taken looking down on Val d'Isere, stitched from 15 individual images.

The weather produced some cold foggy days last week and I took a couple of pictures with the Fuji XE-1 of the fields around my dog walk. This camera does very well at high ISO showing low noise levels. The last photo has some intentional camera movement.

We had some mist in Arkesden - a rare event at the moment, even if it is autumn. Here are a few pictures taken within 200 yds of my home. As usual they have been developed in Lightroom 5 and converted to monochrome using Silver Effex Pro 2

I have a filing system for photographs on my computer which is based on years, months and events and I have taken to putting in that a 'home' folder every month, where I put stuff I have taken close to home. This is getting a bit like a lucky draw so I thought I would show you some of these pictures, if you'll excuse their randomness. The first set are from a walk with a 35mm f/2 lens which I use for more street based photography, but wondered how it would portray the countryside. Bean flowers One of the dog walks I took this to see if I could capture the yellow of the buttercups This one was taken with the Lensbaby zone plate adaptor, which gives a very ethereal effect. Just with a 50mm - a slightly past its best peony Here are some of hostas and ferns in the garden. I liked the shadows of the ferns on the hostas.  The last ones were taken on  an evening after a warm day when, unexpectedly a mist came down. The flowers in the...