Framedlight

In early July, before the weather had turned hot, we had a weekend in Derbyshire, staying with Mairi and Lizzie in Mickleover. We had planned a beer festival in Burton on the Saturday night and climbing in the Roaches as a daytime diversion. My son Hugh also travelled up from Winchester to join us, excited by the prospect of beer and ropes. We started out optimistically on Saturday morning, heading for some rocks, but the dull weather turned into drizzle and then rain. We stopped in Leek for coffee and ventured to the market where we saw the town crier walking around, but not crying. Mairi and Lizzy can be seen, just past the enormous drawers and 'firm control', in the indoor market. Close to Leek is the small village of Rudyard. it is built around a Victorian reservoir and apparently at the turn of the century was a major tourist attraction, with literally thousands coming from Derby and the Potteries to enjoy a swim. The water was not very appealing whe

The rain had eased off slightly by the time we left Leek, but it would have still been too wet for climbing. So we drove to Alstonefield, where we had a picnic out of the boot of the car. This lovely little village has a church, St Peter's, which has a great graveyard. Then we went to Milldale, at the northern and quieter end of Dovedale to meet up with Lizzy's parents and go for a walk. We left the elderly Hettie in the car for this one. We meandered down Dovedale for a little way and then took a side path which went up the hill, through a bed of nettles and wild flowers before reaching pastureland at the top. We walked through a farm and across a field complete with a bull who was too busy with the cows to notice us, fortunately. The views at the top were good, despite the murk. We ended up coming down into Milldale where we bought ice creams to fuel up again. The panorama was then using just three shots. All the photographs were captured using the F

When I left the Tate Modern the sky had grown dark and dramatic with shafts of sunshine coming through. The pigeons were all congregated over a man selling roasted peanuts on the Millennium Bridge.

Now that the Switch House extension has been completed the Tanks have re-opened as well. These cast grey concrete structures were once used as oil tanks for the power station but now they serve as underground exhibition areas. I was very pleased to be able to photograph in the stygian gloom of the video streaming rooms and look at the novel ideas in the other spaces.  The video was by Thai artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul and was filmed in a town near the Mekong river where the Thai army suppressed communism among the local farmers using murder and abuse. There was a well lit are containing several pieces including a blue meccano like structure by Rasheed Arleen which is reassembled by the Tate staff each morning. For variety there were some glass cubes as well as musical objects and some pottery.

I spent some time looking at the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition. It was very crowded and a little hot while I was walking round, but it was extremely interesting and inspiring and she certainly was a free spirit, devoted to her work. when I had come out of the gallery I sat on a bench opposite the escalators. I had just bought a new 10 stop neutral density filter and wanted to try it out. So I took several multiple exposures of the people on the escalators and then moved out to the turbine hall to repeat the exercise. The filter was a fairly cheap SRB one, but I was very pleased with the lack of colour cast it provided. Not that that mattered for this type of picture as I usually alter the colours in them anyway.