Reconnaissance Trip Ending at Great Barford

I have an apology to make for anyone early who attempted to search for these images - I slipped up - Sorry,

They are now properly linked. So, do try again!

The early afternoon sky showed signs of the sun breaking through the overcast, so I gathered potential camera gear for trip to take a look at a lake that apparently according to a couple of anglers I had met at Marston Lake offered possibilities of seeing kingfishers, so I decided a visit was worthwhile to see the lay of the land, as I had taken a look using Google Earth and it was not too far away. The Lake was at Willington, but the only way is for me to locate the local Bailliff for access.

  I set off despite there seeming to be few opportunities to park up nearby, and that proved to be the case, so I travelled a short distance further to Great Barford and after an extended wait at traffic lights, set off over the bridge and after turning right on the far side, parked up close to the Anchor Public House. The siting of this pub and its bridge in the milky sunlight made choosing the EOS 5D and 24-70mm with macro lens the ideal choice, and I put the 35mm f/1.4 in my pocket as a possible addition, and locking the car, crossed the road and entered the riverside field beyond via a kissing gate.

  Only a stretch at the river’s edge is public; the field itself belongs to the private house beyond a smaller bridge to the owner’s garden. The view of the main, long bridge over the Great Ouse was bathed in the soft light from the wintry sun, and almost immediately I saw the chance of choosing a a spot from which to take a series of shots handheld to create a panorama. Adobe Lightroom has an excellent feature for this using Raw files, so selecting the best position, I carefully checked the necessary exposure, then set this on the camera and made this as my fixed exposure and manual focus and holding the camera vertically took eleven consecutive images from the left to the right extremities of the bridge, hoping to complete later the single image of its length. The resulting stitched image heads this piece.

I then reset the camera to Aperture Priority and continued taking photos from this side of the bridge, before returning to the kissing gate, and taking to the same side of the river, but on the other side of the bridge. The light persisted for most of my walk along the path and up to the weir and its lock, where I took a walk over the bridge and along the far side, before retracing my steps and returning across the far less inspiring bridge, where I got talking to a lone man who showed an interest in what photos I was taking. It was during this brief chat I asked him about where he had seen kingfishers and he mentioned Blunham, so this went into my notes of a further visit I should be making.

  On my return walk I began taking shots of the developing seeds of Ivy along the hedgerow, and finally, shots of the The Anchor’s signage and its environs. The completed panorama which stitched with only my shadow and an errant branch being retouched acts as the end piece to the gallery, so I headed homeward to process all the pictures I had been lucky to capture.