Autumn Colour

I've been meaning to take images in the local wood for a while now, but never really got around to it. Hookstone Wood is only 5 minutes from my house, and was once part of the ancient Forest of Knaresborough. Now a Local Nature Reserve and designated ‘town green’, it has ponds (formed from old quarries) and plenty of wildlife.


I've never found it particularly photogenic, but also haven't spend any time exploring the possibilities. Given that the advice from the professionals is is "know your own patch" and be ready to take advantage of any conditions, I decided to begin what I expect to be an ongoing project to capture the woods throughout the year.
I've now spent 3 Saturday afternoons wandering about, and I'm very happy with the results so far!
All images taken with the XPro1, most with the 10-24mm lens and using a Manfrotto tripod.

Getting used to the Wide Angles!

August brought the usual summer holiday to Northumberland. The weather forecast was a bit iffy, but photographically this would be good, and I was excited to give my Fuji XF 10-24mm lens a bit of a run out!

I've never had a wide angle lens before as I also had to compromise with more of an "all rounder" that could be used in more situations (i.e. the 18-55mm).

What I found was that I didn't take this lens off my X Pro1 all week - I love it!! The only thing I have had to do in Lightroom is manually adjust the vertical distortion to get the castles in the background squared up. I was expecting this as I have the camera tilting down for these images.

This lens is more than I have ever spent before (I was considering getting an XT1 instead) - but I dont regret it for a second!

A day at the seaside

A sunny day, what could be better than a trip to the seaside. We had never been to Saltburn, but I knew it had a pier and some Victorian cliff lifts, so thought utter should offer some photographic opportunities. Saltburn is close to Redcar where industry and holidays are very closely linked and I'm fascinated by the physical closeness between them. There seems to be more people on the beach next to a big industrial complex than on the wide open sands at Saltburn which is only 10 minutes away.
It was also an opportunity to try the Big Stopper in the middle of the day.

Still snowy !

The snow is still here so thought I'd try a couple more images.

I also wanted to try out the panoramic option. This proved more difficult than I thought it would. It might be something that I'm doing (or not doing!) but I couldn't seem to get both ends of the image sharp.

The left hand side of this image is fine, but the right hand side is terrible (I was sweeping left to right).

This was probably my most successful attempt. I think I need to put in a bit more practice!

The end of Autumn

I took these a few weeks ago on The Stray in Harrogate, but have only just got round to looking at them.

I realise that these posts are not in any particular order, but I'm new to this and didn't think it through properly before I started! I should start to sort it out soon ...

I wanted to try and show the autumn colours on The Stray in Harrogate, and I just love the way the X Pro1 captures colours. This camera is such fun to use, but I didn't realise quite how lazy I had got using my old Sony DSLR. I used to set it up in Aperture Priority, ISO100 and pretty much forget about everything else. That is NOT the way to use this camera (although you could, but whats the point of that!). Its making me think more about the exposure, depth of field and shutter speed - which is great. All these things are part of the creative process and should be thought about.

Remembrance Sunday - 11th November 2012

Every year my daughters school are asked to be involved with the service at the Commonwealth War Graves in Harrogate. Together with Army recruits from the local college they put roses on every grave.

Its always very moving, and hard to think that most of the graves are for servicemen in their late teens or early twenties, and they were the same age as the recruits who were on parade.

The sun was bright and low, but it was very cold. The X Pro1 didn't miss a thing. The image of the officer inspecting the graves was shot directly into the sun - I couldn't really see through the viewfinder but the X Pro1 could!

Back to the start ...

After a lot of saving and selling my beloved Bianchi bike I still didn't have enough money to buy an X Pro1, but then the boffins at Fuji came out with the XE1. I really wanted the optical viewfinder, but couldn't justify the extra money. While waiting for the launch and reading every review I could, the sneaky guys at Fuji offered a free lens with the X Pro1 ... an offer I convinced my wife was too good to miss!

A trip to Bass and Bligh in Harrogate and the order was placed - X Pro1 with 18-55 lens, and I would get the 35/1.4 free! A week later I had the camera but no lens, so Bass and Bligh kindly lent me the 18/2.

The weather wasn't great but that weekend I had try it out and just loved how it worked and the images. The windfarm was my first trial run.

Late Afternoon

Latest image with this fantastic camera.

I went out last Sunday with low expectations as the weather wasn't great, and the spectacular sunsets of the past few days seemed very unlikely.

I ended up going to one of my favourite places along Penny Pot Lane, on the outskirts of Harrogate. I love the windfarm there (although its not popular with the locals!) and the view across to Menwith Hill. This location is better in the mornings, and I was determined to try and get a different image from what I have in the past.

I saw this tree silhouetted against the horizon, and as I wandered down the bridlepath, the tree suddenly lined up with the gate opening, and I could see my image. I only have the 35mm lens at the moment (18-55 is on order), so it was necessary to crop this image as I couldn't get any closer. I haven't changed any colours, the sun is just cropped out on the left hand side, and gave off the golden glow.