Yorkshire Dales morning

I took this photograph on a footpath leading from Watery Lane just out of the market town of Settle, North Yorkshire. You won't find a lane of that name on the Ordnance Survey maps: there it is called Brockhole Lane. However, for the past several decades and perhaps longer I, and many other people native to the town, have styled it after the streams that regularly flow along its length. We had just left the lane and were heading up to Lodge Pond when the early morning mist began to clear and ahead of us, above the hillside and through the trees, the sun appeared. Such shots, where little preparation can be made, are a bit hit and miss, and often require some processing. So it was with this one.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Canon 5D2     2012

Hawthorn berries 1

A few days in the North Yorkshire town of Settle, the place of my upbringing, coincided with a spell of weather warmer than the seasonal average. The accompanying blue skies lit the landscape well and also made the hawthorn berries stand out much more than usual. It seems to be a particularly good year for these "haws" and that probably speaks of a favourable spring that enabled more blossom to produce berries than is normally the case. This pair, near the hamlet of Feizor, were particularly eye-catching.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

View of Settle from Giggleswick Scars

I've never understood the attractions of golf as a game and have no liking for the way the sport uses and abuses open land. However, were I to indulge in the sport I imagine it would be harder to find a pleasanter place to do it than the 9 hole course at Settle & Giggleswick Golf Club. It's the setting, below the geological fault line of Giggleswick Scars that makes it so different. On the day I took this photograph, from the Scars looking south, the low cloud of a temperature inversion was slowly clearing, adding interest to my shot into the sun.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

The dipper

I imagine that everyone who watches wild birds on a regular basis has their favourites. I've always had a liking for the wader known as the greenshank (after its green legs). It's an elegant bird with subtle colouring. I also like the wheatear, a bird that was a harbinger of spring when I lived in the Yorkshire Dales. In recent years I've developed an affection for the swifts that flash about the village in which I live, screeching or hunting for flies. The old name for them in "devil bird", but I can see nothing about swifts that warrants that derogatory name. On a recent visit to the town of my upbringing, Settle, I photographed another favourite - the dumpy dipper, a bird of fast flowing upland streams and rivers.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon P900

Talbot Arms at night

As with the previous photograph, the main subjects of this shot are the filament, LED and moon light that illuminate a building. In this instance it is the Talbot Arms pub in Settle, North Yorkshire. The pub's sign is also well lit and its clarity anong the surrounding pools of light suggested a focal point for a composition. The talbot was a type of large hunting hound, white or very pale in colour, with hanging ears and great powers of scent. It features reasonably commonly on coats of arms.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Moonlit market place, Settle

A few days in the North Yorkshire market town of Settle, the place of my upbringing, produced a couple of night-time photographs. A small settlement such as this isn't the obvious place to look for night-time shots - cities are much more popular - but the combination of street and property lights with a bright moon drew my eye. The Shambles, the arched building on the left is not only a combination of of the work of seventeenth century and Victorian builders, but also, it seems, a place of traditional filament and modern LED lighting. The building on the right is the town hall.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100