More Holiday Snaps: I’ve just got back from this year’s holiday and have still to really look at the pictures that I took. So for the moment I’ll share a few pictures from a week’s holiday with friends which began on 23rd August 2013. You can see many more of the on My London Diary at More Holiday Snaps.
Aysgarth falls
We stayed in Sowerby, the other half of the better-known market town of Thirsk in North Yorkshire. Holy Rood House had from 1979-1993 been the The Convent of the Holy Rood but in 2013 was, a Centre for Health and Pastoral Care, and we had hired it for a week during its summer break.
Thirsk Hall, home of the Lord of the Manor – John Bell lives here alone. The Bells have owned the manor since 1723
The pictures on My London Diary include some of our friends and some inside the house itself, as well as from out many walks in and around Sowerby and Thirsk as well as from a short stretch of the Cleveland Way, and from visits to Byland Abbey, Nunnington Hall, Mount Grace Priory and across in the Yorkshire Dales, the Aysgarth Falls and Hawes.
The sluice gate on the Cod Beck.Near South KilvingtonDisused Primitive Methodist chapel at Upsall, built 1887Piper Hill, FelixkirkKilburnByland AbbeyNunnington HallAysgarth: The lower fallsHawesMount Grace PrioryBehind the house are the ruins of one of the largest and wealthiest of England’s Carthusian monasteriesOsmotherleyWe took the Cleveland Way east out of OsmotherleyFinally we said goodbye to our friends and the goats at Holy Rood House and came home.
Writing this at the end of a day of lousy weather, wind and rain that caused transport havoc somehow seemed an appropriate time to think back about our week’s holiday last year in Wharfedale, one of the Yorkshire dales. The weather forecast for that week was little more encouraging, but in fact the weather turned out rather better than the forecast. Folowing our great gale back in 1987, when BBC forecaster Michael Fish had told us not to worry about it, according to Wikipedia, “major improvements were later implemented in atmospheric observation, relevant computer models, and the training of forecasters. Perhaps the major aspect of that training was to make all forecasts on the pessimistic side.
And while today there have been floods in some towns, trees blowing down and blocking roads or falling through roofs and it must have been terrible for those concerned, as well as for the many homeless on our streets, it hasn’t been a great disaster for most of us. And many photographers will have been out taking ‘weather pictures’, and a few living in the worst hit areas may have made decent sales. It’s not a speciality I’ve ever had much interest in, though I have sometimes gone out to take pictures in the snow because of the very different look that places have.
So although the forecast for our holiday week was pretty dire, it didn’t turn out quite so bad, though we did get quite a bit of rain, but there was also some unforecast sunshine. And that rain did make the several waterfalls we visited rather more impressive than in a dry summer.
I took only one camera with me on holiday, travelling fairly light with the Olympus E-M5 II and just a couple of lenses. No flash, no tripod but several spare batteries made up my kit. It would have been a very light kit with just the 14-150mm, but I also took the slightly buliky but outstanding Panasonic Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 8-18mm f/2.8-4.0 ASPH, something of a mouthful. To be fair it is well less than half the weight of an equivalent full frame lens, but for a holiday I could perhaps just have taken a fixed focal length ultrawide. But such things hardly exist.
The Olympus is a fine camera for holiday use, and I have used it for photographing events, but there I find it just a little disappointing, espcially in low light. With both a physically smaller sensor and a smaller file size the results have sometimes not quite had the image quality I want.
One thing I was pleased to have with me was a poncho. I’d bought one after seeing another photographer working wearing one, but hadn’t yet worn one myself at work. I generally rely on the Met Office’s forecast and dress accordingly and somehow it hasn’t yet been poncho weather, but up in Yorkshire it certainly was on several days, with at least light rain and reasonably warm. Warm enough to work up a sweat walking up hills in a jacket while a poncho gives plenty of ventilation. Most of the time the camera sits in the dry under it, and you can just pull it up on the outside when you want to take a picture.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media. And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.
I just managed to finish posting my pictures and comments to My London Diary for September 2019 before the end of October, though I am finding it more and more difficult to keep up.
I began September with a rather active week with friends in the Yorkshire Dales, mainly in Wharfedale. It was an area I’d hardly visited before and certainly worth a trip.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media. And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.
