Aylesbury Concert Band – Aylesbury Methodist Church

This was designated the New Year Concert for the Band but the weather proved not to be too helpful as it was cold and drizzly with snow forecast which tends to put people off attending which is a shame.

I arrived reasonably early and managed to park almost opposite the church which is always a benefit. The church has a horseshoe-shaped upper deck which because there was only one young girl up there, I had the opportunity to take photographs from different angles, and working from above means there are fewer obstacles to the view of the musicians.

The amount of light was also a benefit, but the one drawback was that I was visible and could cause distraction to those playing, I would have liked the back lights to be off so that I could not be seen.

The repertoire was varied, ranging from Sousa and Verdi in the first half to Strauss, Elgar, Hess and Gershwin in the second, and much to the delight of the audience the Radetzky March by way of an encore and I have a delighted lady clapping to that to end my gallery.

Marston Moretaine's Separated Church & Tower

Having not created any galleries for a while except those that were family-related, I decided that despite the cold day, I would take advantage of the warm last rays of the evening sun that must be lighting the nearby Grade One Listed Church.

Grabbing just the one camera and stuffing a wider angle lens in my coat pocket I walked along the road towards the track that led to the somewhat unusual local church to St. Mary the Virgin, whose tower is some distance from the body of the church. This gave rise to the story that the reason was the Devil was attempting to steal the tower, but he hadn't taken note of its weight and lacked the power to carry it more than a few feet before giving in and leaving it where it remains to this day. The true reason seems lost in the mists of time; maybe Time Team should be invited to delve deeper to discover the real reason, but the church building itself is an interesting mix of styles and dates from around 1340.

Currently due to the inordinate amount of rain that has fallen, the ground is waterlogged and extremely slippery in the grassy areas, but the brook that runs from the area and under the main road and by the side of the road leading to the Forest Centre, though its level is much higher than when I saw it in the summer, has been deepened again recently giving some confidence that this flood plain is receiving attention regarding flood risks. However I hope that some of the brambles might be removed to ensure an uninterrupted flow to this vital safety measure.

The nature of the church and tower's construction does not lend itself to a long thin horizontal format so I chose a more suitable image from the graveyard. The graves within its boundary do not seem overly crowded, but a stretch of land on the outskirts of the village have been acquired and it is planned that this area will become the extension to the church's graveyard at some time in the future.

Sunshine and a Fair Wind – Brogborough New Year’s Eve

 

I was hoping from the wind that swirled here at Marston Moretaine that conditions would be good at Brogborough Lake, and certainly there were signs of activity, but the wind was less strong here than I had hoped, but I entertained the idea that some of those present would exercise a few jumps for me.

In the distance someone obliged, but had I blinked I would have missed it, and despite staying beyond last time’s hour and a half, I mainly captured a series of high-speed turns, but unlike the jumpers, the sailors performed in too close for  the shortest end of my telephoto range, so invariably I was left losing half the sail and less of the trailing spume created by the manoeuvre. I was seeing faces however which from my different, front-on position of last time I was getting a good view of the boards’ undersides, but no clue to the anonymous sailor!

It is all grist to the mill, and post-processing sunshine shots is easier, but the sheer volume means I leave everything chronological rather than organise the gallery pages relative to the content, but that may well break the continuity of a sequence. I also have to improve the level and stability of my tripod to limit the amount of time straightening the horizon.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge but need to ensure I always wear a scarf as my neck stiffened with the constant battering from behind as I bent over the camera.

A colleague of mine, Adam Woolfitt sent me an image of a kite surfer he had captured with St. Michael’s Mount as a backdrop and a shoreline of breaking waves, and it does make a difference!