Category Archives: Photography

Summer Walks

In recent weeks I have been making the most of the good weather and have embarked on some walks in the local area. The distance varies but, at present, my walks have been between 7 and 9 miles.

A Circular walk from Chastleton

My latest was a round trip of roughly 8 miles. I parked my car near Chastleton House, a National Trust property and set off towards Cornwell then making my way to Daylesford Organic for my lunch stop. There is a bridleway which cuts through the Daylesford Estate which emerges just along the road from the farm shop. A good point for walkers is that there are several walking routes on the estate that are well signposted. Visitors are encouraged to use these footpaths, a good excuse to visit the farm shop for something to eat before going on one of the walks.

St Nicholas Church, Lower Oddington, Gloucestershire

After Daylesford I walked along one of the “newly” marked footpaths to Lower Oddington before crossing the A436 to reach Adlestrop a quaint hamlet which once had a railway station.

The station sign for the long gone Adlestrop station

The railway station at Adlestrop was in existence from 1853 until 1966. All that remains is the station sign which can be found by the bus shelter.The station was immortalised by Edward Thomas in his poem following his train stopping at the station on 24 June 1914.

Stone corbel on the edge of a window in the parish church of St Mary Magdalene in the Gloucestershire hamlet of Adlestrop

As I walked around Adlestrop I came across this tap set into the wall of one of the houses. A small plaque informs passers by that this tap was the source of fresh water for the villagers up to the 1950s.

A disused water tap can be found by the wall of a house in the Gloucestershire hamlet of Adlestrop.

Upper Slaughter

Whilst Lower Slaughter on the banks of the River Eye is perhaps more well known and photogenic its neighbour the village of Upper Slaughter about one mile up the road also has some photogenic buildings and things to see. Here is a brief gallery of 6 images taken on my recent walk there.

I parked my car in Lower Slaughter before that day’s tourists arrived so needless to say also took some photographs of this village too. Having left the car there I undertook about an 8 mile walk.

Cotswold Lavender

At this time of year, July/August, the lavender fields at Cotswold Lavender are in flower. They make a spectacular sight, who needs to go to Provence to see lavender in all its glory?

In addition to the lavender the company have also set aside an area for wildflowers to grow. They are just as photogenic as the lavender! The fields attract a lot of visitors who, armed with selfie sticks, sit down among the rows and photograph themselves. A lot of the women wear sun hats and summer dresses to contrast with the purple of the lavender. Picking and processing starts in August.

A link to the website can be found here:- https://www.cotswoldlavender.co.uk

Rugby Saturday

I enjoy watching rugby and paid a visit to Kingsholm yesterday to watch Gloucester play Wasps. Sadly the result did not go Gloucester’s way, they lost 21-27. First half was a bit scrappy but things livened up a bit in the second when all the tries were scored.

Lineout action from the second half. Wasps putting pressure on Gloucester.

Cropped image taken on my iPhone.

Is Spring finally here?

Spring came to this part of England a couple of weeks ago which meant the I was out and about with my camera. My latest trip was a pleasant drive to Guiting Power where I parked the car and walked over to Kineton before making my return in time to buy lunch at The Cotswold Guy, a deli in Guiting power.

St Michael’s and All Angels Church in the Gloucestershire village of Guiting Power

My first choice of food supply was The Old Post Office which as well as being the village shop also has a cafe. Sadly it was closed for refurbishment, this was during Cheltenham Festival week which surprised me, but there you go. I’ll have to return some day to sample their wares.

The Old Post Office, a shop and cafe in the Gloucestershire village of Guiting Power
Cotswold stone barn in the Gloucestershire village of Guiting Power
Stone steps cut into a wall in the Gloucestershire village of Guiting Power

However, the weather these past few days has seen snow and overnight frost so maybe Spring is not quite here yet!

Oxford Canal Walk

To start the year off I drove to Thrupp on Sunday 2nd January and went for a walk along the towpath. I had aimed to walk across the fields to the church at Hampton Gay. However, after all the rain we had had water levels were high and the path from the canal bank to the church was flooded.

However, I walked along the path as far as Enslow Wharf before turning around to retrace my steps to the car. Here are some photos from my walk.

London Images

These days camera lenses tend to be “computers”. I have a Tamron 150-600mm lens and in order for it to be compatible with my Nikon Z6 the firmware needed to be upgraded. Fixation near Vauxhall is the Tamron agent so after collecting the lens I tried it out taking some images of the river from near to Vauxhall Bridge.

In order to get the best out of it the shutter speed should be close to the focal length of the lens in order to minimise “camera shake”. The majority of these images were taken at 1/1000 second at a rating of 640ISO. I’m glad to say the lens passed its test with flying colours.

Above are some of the photos I took on my visit to London last week.

Photoshop’s Sky Replacement Tool

Adobe’s Photoshop software continues to evolve with more additions being added all the time. One recent new feature is Sky Replacement. Some sample skies are included to get you started. You can, of course, add your own and use them which is a great asset if you are “creating” new images and uploading them to library websites. At least then the complete copyright rests with me as the photographer and so I do not need to worry unduly on this score.

I have played around with it using examples of aircraft images shot during a visit I paid to Turweston airfield in June 2021. Here is one of my reworked images.

DHC1 Chipmunk, Turweston Airfield, Buckinghamshire, England

2021 Posts

I realise that I have been remiss and have not posted anything for a couple of months. We are now into March so hopefully spring is around the corner. We have had a relatively mild winter with very little snow compared with other parts of the country. Let’s hope that is all we are going to get.

Here are a couple of photos from the modest snowfall we have had.

Nikon Z6 – First Impressions

Garden visitor – Nikon Z6 Nikon 24-200mm f4-f6.3 Z lens @ 200mm
1600ISO 1/320 f6.3
Parasol mushroom – Nikon Z6 Nikon 24-200mm f4-f6.3 lens @ 110mm
6400ISO 1/60 f8

I recently treated myself to a mirrorless SLR. Having used Nikons for as long as I can remember I went for a Z6, I couldn’t justify the cost of a Z7, and purchased the 24-200mm lens rather than the “kit” one usually offered with it.

So far I am extremely impressed with the quality of the images even when I have pushed the “film speed” ISO. In the past with my D800 I tended to shoot at as low an ISO as possible – 100ISO in order to achieve the quality I was used to when I shot slides in my pre digital days.

I thought I would experiment with a higher ISO and these are two of the results.