Following last week's dearth of photos I clicked more often. The weather was hot and sunny, not always the best for photography, but looking at the results was interesting. I know little about the finer points, but I do take all my photos through Photoshop and crop many and also use the enhancement features on most which allow:
1. Darken/lighten highlights (nearly always darken)
2. Lighten/darken shadows
3. Contrast (only used occasionally)
This day I took 13 pics and discarded two and created one new one to compare with the original. I felt no need to make any adjustments under the three above categories, and only cropped the one of the sunlight in the woods slightly, and the final one of Cartmel Priory to illustrate a point. I suppose the camera was having an easy time with default settings working well in perfect light conditions obviating my need to intervene afterwards.
This Panasonic DMC TZ40 is proving to be a good buy rendering realistic colour and impressively detailed and sharp zoom shots, even at 21 x, and with the neat advantage of fitting into an easily accessible, horizontal, velcro fastened pouch attached to my rucksack waist belt. That encourages opportunistic snapping which is missed when the camera is stowed less conveniently.
CLICK FIRST PIC TO ENLARGE
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| Route started at the priory going clockwise |
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| In Cartmel Priory grounds - location of our first geocache |
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| Cartmel Priory |
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| In the village - very touristy - lots of people about |
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| Home of the original ubiquitous "sticky toffee pudding" now seen on nearly every pub menu in the country |
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| The interior of this construction was totally overgrown so no clues to its purpose - anybody any ideas? See the next pic. which details the cement rendered curved wall tops. |
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| Howbarrow, 170m. It has a trig point which you can just see. The people were a family from Oregon in The States seeing more of our super country than many other visitors from abroad. Pity about the electric transmission lines across the pic. |
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| I seem to remember visiting here with Gimmer to stock up with veg. at the start of some expedition into the wilds. I think it has now closed down. Too remote even for the more ardent organicists? |
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| This view of Cartmel Priory with Hampsfell in the background has been trashed with the modern building, the hideous portacabin thing and the car park, but below shows what can be achieved with a bit of cropping - what you see in the cropped photo is pleasing, but the real life view can't be avoided |
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UPDATE - The unidentified shrub photo in my last post was Lavatera.
From Wikipedia:
Many Lavatera species have now been transferred to the related genus Malva. Lavatera species are known as tree mallows, or rather ambiguously as rose mallows, royal mallows or annual mallows.
"hideous portacabin thing" perhaps, but remind yourself that joy is not always an aesthetic experience. That green box may bring about a blessed surcease not to be found in the pretty church.
ReplyDeleteHowborrow - the owners now own Grange Bakery and bake a good range of organic breads as well as all the regular stuff - they used to grow all the special herbs and vegetables for Rogan's cafes in Cartmel, after leasing the organic food shop and box delivery business to some clowns from Lancashire (who messed it all up and went bust) - but the demands imposed became insupportable.
ReplyDeleteSome of the old farm buildings have been converted to lovely and characterful small self-catering holiday cottages, all powered by 'green' energy - so, far from going bust, they have moved on to other things but still grow organic food and raise 'organic' beasts and fowl!
And no, I have no shares in the business but know a good one when I find it!
Going there on a Saturday morning was a great social occasion after a week in The City - great staff and great food. But things move on.
I wonder if the stone walls are an ancient Pinfold or Pound for stray animals. Was there an entrance?
ReplyDeleteCan't see you up in that lovely old tree you have a photo of.
Not sure 6 out of 9 geocaches is good enough. Must try harder!
RR - I looked carefully as we came nearer and the green box could easily have been placed more sympathetically so as to be almost disguised against the tree background.
ReplyDeleteSurcease I applaud, "...not be found in..." many people's vocabulary - what about "easement" instead - it seem a bit mor onomatopoeic to me?
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gimmer - I said to Pete, Gimmer will rise to this one, and I was aware that there was some backstory in their defence but couldn't remember the details. You would think the dilapidated sign would have been removed - there is another one further down the road.
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bowlandclimber - I couldn't see an entrance. On the OS 1:25000 map there is a "reservoir" marked at SD 36430 77515 which can also be seen as a green oblong shape on the 1:50000 map which appears as an apparent extension of the wood on the south side of the lane. The feature in my photo is at SD 36460 77725 - my guess is that it has to do with water.
I've become quite philosophical about not finding geocaches and am not prepared to waste a lot of time if clues are badly worded, especially those fond of using left and right (depends which way you are facing) instead of points of the compass.
One of the "blogs I follow" is:
http://mappiman.blogspot.co.uk/
He has found 3945. He has a league table on the sidebar of his graph which says that total only rates him at 695th in the UK! Reading his blog he quite often fails to find caches, and since there are over two million worldwide it is never going to be a matter of completing the list.
The stone structure. Obviously a communal bath never used because it leaked and waterproof grout hadn't then been invented. Nor did the residents of that curious appendage to the Lake District see any need to wash more than once a year. Probably still don't.
ReplyDelete