Take two

click photo to enlarge
I'm not averse to taking shots of the same subject at different times to try and get a better image. In fact, it's part of what I think a photographer should do. You learn far more from doing this than by searching for a new subject for every exposure. In this blog I've done it with several churches including Quadring, Bicker, and Sleaford, though I've done it less with landscapes. However, on my recent visit to Settle, North Yorkshire, I tried to take a shot from the same place that I'd stood to take one last October.

The precise location I chose last year was in Watery Lane to the south of the town. It was early in the morning and mist was being burned off by the low sun but still lingered and obscured the nearby hills. I chose as the main focal points of my contre jour composition two gates that presented eye-catching, dark silhouettes. The shot is one of my best landscapes from 2012. Passing those gates at the end of June I tried to compose the same shot but in conditions of quite different weather and lighting. Of course, when you are working from memory you're very unlikely to stand in precisely the same place or to set the focal length of a zoom lens the same as in the first shot. And so it proved here.

I quite like the result of the second photograph. It clearly doesn't have the same impact as the first but what it does illustrate is how important lighting can be in securing an eye-catching photograph. Not only is the contrast and drama enhanced by the sun in the first shot, the mist and the indistinct shapes of the trees establish a particular mood. The photograph above lacks those qualities but is better in terms of reportage about the Yorkshire Dales landscape.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.3mm (33mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Watery Lane, Settle

click photo to enlarge
Today's photograph was taken only a couple of minutes later and a few yards on from where I took yesterday's shot. The two trees on the left can be seen in both images. Here though the view is more to the south and brings into sight the stream that enters the lane from the field behind the drystone wall. The path bridges the stream and continues alongside it. It can be seen as a thin, worn strip through the grass, shining wet with the rain, that recedes into the distance.

If you look at the 1:25000 Ordnance Survey map this lane is shown as part of Brockhole Lane and it links to a lane/path that carries the same name which veers off left and uphill towards Lodge Gill. However, the lane before us actually carries on past Fish Copy Barn to Lodge Lane, and that section is un-named on the maps (even on the old 6 inch map). In fact, in the locality, this part of the lane and the section that stretches to Lodge Lane is seen as one and the same and is known as Watery Lane. Perhaps one day the official maps will reflect this. It is well-named, because in all but the driest of summers water flows along it, and can make the route, in parts, almost impassable. As a child I often sought out the section of stream in the photograph though usually when it was calmer and only a few inches deep. It was here, after reading "The Water Babies" by Charles Kingsley, a very odd book, part of which is set in a limestone stream of the Yorkshire Dales, that I first saw a caddis fly larva in its strange case made of gravel and twigs.

On this day when we walked along Watery Lane it would have been no pleasure to delve into the depths in search of wildlife. It did, however, prove to be a good test of the waterproofing of our boots and, I'm pleased to say, they passed with flying colours.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On