Cheshire continues to be a black and white location. I’d hoped for a good sunset but it turned cloudy and wet, hence the B+W treatment. The location is the Peckforton hills, a short stretch of sandstone hills with three castles, the most famous one being Beeston Castle. I used the Pentax K20D for a change. I think the quality is pretty much indistinguishable from the Olympus, though perhaps I can generally get sharper results with the Olympus. I should own up that the shot of

Perfect walking weather in the Lake District. Sparking snowy tops, clear blue sky. Actually, I’d prefer worse weather for taking good photographs, you get more drama but I shouldn’t complain. You can drive to the summit of Wrynose Pass at about 400 metres and from there in about half a horizontal mile and 300 metres of ascent to Cold Pike of Pike o’Blisco and panoramic views. West to the sea. North to Skiddaw above Keswick. South east to Windermere and the Howgill Fells. #cum

I need to apologise for the number of pictures in this gallery post. One of the rules of presenting your photographs is to edit ruthlessly and I should probably only be showing half of these but I couldn’t help myself. I went to Langdale, one of my favourite places, in the hope of spectacular sunset light catching the pikes. I remember being there last autumn and seeing a truly spectacular light show on their southern flank but I wasn’t in position for it. This time I was in

Landscape photographers have to take their chances where they can get them. I went over to Snowdonia yesterday knowing that the forecast was changeable. It only really changed from light rain to heavy rain. I only got one reasonable shot from the day and here it is. An old stone boat house on Llyn Gwynant, Snowdonia #landscape #olympus #omdem10 #photography

This was Joy’s last hurrah before going back to full time work so we made the effort to get to the mountains and find some snow. We did a simple route that I thought we could do quickly and then extend if we had time to spare, though I over-estimated our speed. We did a round of Tryfan, going up to Bwlch Tryfan from the Cwm Bochlwyd side and back again down Cwm Tryfan. From the road the path is almost immediately rough scrambling and very wet but with glorious weather. Dazzli

Joy and I made the journey to Ambleside in hopes of catching the snow at its best and we weren’t disappointed. We did the very popular walk to Troutbeck via Wansfell Pike and return via Skelghyll Wood. There was a heavy overcast but otherwise good weather to start, it made good subdued light for photography. We were soon glad we had taken our very useful mini-spikes and walking poles. The popular track was steep and iced up. Plenty of people were spending a lot of time fallin

The first time I’ve been in the mountains for a few months and this time it’s Snowdonia, which is now nearer to me than the Lake District. Llyn Ogwen is very easy to get to and you can walk from there up to Llyn Idwal, in it’s spectacular cirque, in about fifteen minutes. The forecast was not good but it was sunny when I arrived so I hurried on up while the light lasted. I’d had a surprise during the drive down, as from quite some distance away I’d seen the tops of very snowy

Since I started photography I’ve been used to colourful winters. I’ve spent all of them in the pennines, either in the Yorkshire Dales or Calderdale. Even when the trees are bare there’s a lot of colour around, in the heather, the bracken, the gritstone, the fallen leaves. Now I’ve moved to Cheshire and it’s all shades of grey. Hence why all my recent shots have been in black and white. I think I’ve never shot so much black and white. I’m enjoying it, though I’d love to get o

While visiting relatives and doing some walking I’ve taken some black and white shots. #photography #omdem10 #landscape #gallerypost #monochrome #olympus

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Circle.” Walking home on Christmas Eve we saw the moon in the centre of what seemed like a perfectly round hole in the clouds. It turned out to be one of these. I’ve never seen one before but it seemed fairly obvious that it must be something like a rainbow type of effect. Very atmospheric. As I didn’t have a tripod or any way of guessing good exposure I just pointed and shot with my trusty Olympus OMD-EM10 and it did a

Some strong autumn colour from back in November. The dark overcast and wet weather are good for emphasizing the colours, a good tip if you think the weather is too bad for photography. #landscape #olympus #omdem10 #photography

A couple of shots from the Dee Estuary, taken from the Wirral side at Thurstaston beach, just by Shore Cottage Studio The first shows, presumably, cockle pickers doing their back breaking work. Cockle pickers on the Dee Estuary The second is the view towards the inland end of the estuary #landscape #olympus #omdem10 #photography

A dark and moody morning for my first photo-shoot in our new home, Lymm in Cheshire. The setting is Lymm dam and St. Mary’s Church. #gallery-976-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-976-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-976-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-976-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */ #lymm

We’ve settled into our new house and I’ve managed to get out a few times to shoot some pictures. Yesterday we went to Llandudno and walked round the Great Orme, a very prominent limestone headland jutting into the Irish Sea with good views (on a clear day) of the Snowdonia mountains and Anglesey and probably much else besides when the air is clear enough. A very grey day suited black and white treatment best. #gallery-962-6 { margin: auto; } #gallery-962-6 .gall

I’m finally moved into our new house and starting to get organised. I even went out and shot some photos the other day (still waiting to be processed). My next market is this saturday, Leeds city centre, with Artsmix, and is the final one before Christmas. In fact, the final one of any kind Richard and I have booked. Next year we’ll need to do some research on other markets to try out. #artmarkets #artsmix #photography

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Treat.” Joy and I (mostly me) have a lazy streak (OK, just me). A big treat that’s a major part of a day walking for me is coffee and cake. Two places that are BIG on this treat are the alps, with the wonderful selection of mountain huts, alms houses, and hill-top cafes, and the south-west way along the Somerset, Cornwall, Devon and Dorset coast. These have some of the best cafes in the country, rightly famous for their

The day before my previous post I stationed myself at Little Langdale for the sunset. And a very nice sunset it was too. I used both the Olympus and the Pentax for these – I can fit a graduated neutral density filter on the front of the Pentax, which I can’t on the Olympus. #gallery-928-2 { margin: auto; } #gallery-928-2 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-928-2 img { border: 2px sol

I worked hard for these shots, starting with the alarm going off at 4am so I could be in Langdale by six, in place for the sunrise. I was rewarded with a wonderful dawn and the light changing from blue to pink to orange to yellow over the course of about ninety minutes. I used the Olympus OMD-EM10 for all these shots. It seems to have replaced my Pentax K20D as my “serious” camera. I love using the EVF for live histogram and focus peaking. It’s lighter so I think the tripod k

It’s getting near to the peak of autumn colour now. The lake district is wonderful at this time and between Grasmere, Ambleside and Langdale is particularly good. The light wasn’t at its best but it wasn’t too bad, a soft overcast with occasional brightness. At least there wasn’t any wind, so most of my pictures ended up nice and sharp. I took both my Olympus OMD-EM10 and Pentax K20D. Stupidly, I’d forgotten the memory card for the Pentax. I was shooting mostly with the Olymp

I’ve got a batch of Lake District photos needing to be processed but this was also on the memory card and I like it. Red and Blue #olympus #omdem10 #photography