A Summer Meeting of DigiCluster

On this occasion to celebrate the warmth of the season, This meeting was to be held at the Old Schoolhouse near Hunton Bridge and the Grand Union canal. I set off fairly early knowing that the M1 motorway has roadworks, but I overestimated how much that might add to my journey time, so I arrived rather early, which did have a benefit it allowed me to wander around the building and take some photos to add to the gallery of images and establish the location.

Since there are a lot of people working here, the car park was still fairly full limiting some of the angles to capture the building cleanly, but I did my best to minimise the loss as best I might.

Although the building has merit as a place to work, the proximity to a very main road does mean that the noise level is very high, which might well prove problematic in the summer months with all the windows open!

After a short while the guest began to arrive and I was able to Capture the build-up as numerous staff busied themselves adding to the array of food and drink, and I did wonder whether the food provision, in particular the array of cheeses might well be excessively generous.

I began shooting with the 24-70mm lens on the 5D MkIII, but towards the end of the evening, I went back to the car and brought out my 85mm f/1.8 and took a few shots using that before reverting back to the zoom lens. Towards the end I was shooting in the low fractions of a second and at ISO 5000, which brought the success rate down somewhat!

There were some interesting moments when flames rose somewhat higher than was anticipated, which gave me some atmospheric shots, that originally I had considered making into a separate gallery, but time was limited as on the Saturday morning I am due a very early start to travel to Goodwood with my younger daughter to visit the Festival of Speed.

Altogether, I have to say it was a splendid evening, though there were fewer members that I knew very well and so I was mixing less than on other occasions. I trust that the various moments I captured conveys the evening for all those who attended.

Grand Union Canal at Hunton Bridge

An angler had mentioned that kingfishers were in abundance along the canal around Hunton Bridge, and I thought he mentioned Mary Capel’s Wharf, but maybe that was a failing of my memory, as search as I might online, I found nothing beyond who she was and her connection to Cassiobury Park and her marriage to the owner, the Earl of Essex. However on my return from a long walk in both directions from Hunton Bridge, I used the phrase Lady Capel’s Wharf, and realised I had all but arrived there when I came to the White Bridge, which gave onto the Grove.

The gallery of images depicting my journey along the towpath, initially cover the distance towards Hemel Hempstead, before returning to Hunton Bridge and setting off in the opposite direction towards Watford. Rhodadendrons were just coming into bloom on the far side from where I joined the path. much of the journey was within the tunnel of overhanging trees, but in the sunlight beyond I first spotted a comma butterfly i the hedgerow, then just beyond I spotted a snake swimming leisurely from the far side, asking those I met what species it was, proved to be fruitless and despite an angler’s insistence it was an adder, it turned out to be a grass snake!

At a fork in the canal, a family of swans had settled with its cygnets, and then beyond the towpath alongside a lake was an amiable dinosaur, followed by a crane and a heron, the crane being of the species ‘mechanica’, and one I recognised from my time photographing progress work at the Foresters Development in Harpenden over the last eighteen months.

A robin was gorging itself on a worm; though spotting wings, maybe this mouthful was not for itself but possibly for its offspring. A recent set of apartments along the far bank looked extremely appealing in the pleasant sunshine, and the repetitive shapes of the flyover supports I found fascinating as I passed beneath. The locks, the curves of the canal’s travel and the bridges also have charm as do the manicured lawns of some of the private dwellings along the route, but it does disappoint me to see so much discarded rubbish alongside such amenities and I felt this was epitomised by the plastic throne in the undergrowth by the ashes of a small fire and crushed lager cans. How is it difficult to bring back lightweight empty cans when it was so easy to carry weighty full ones?