Ashridge Forest – Autumn Sunshine

My trip in sunshine to Ashridge to visit the Author of the ‘Photoshop for Photographers’ books meant that after delivering the last item, the images for a personal Ad at the end of the book, I took along my camera in the hope of capturing some of the surrounding scenery in the fickle sunshine and billowing clouds. I was rewarded by the mixture of colours that herald the onset of autumn, and the occasional light showers meant the obvious possibility of rainbows.

At every clearing that sported an area for the parking of cars, already had its measure of takers, and many of those could be seen unloading their cargo of dogs to give them some exercise in the woods and moorland. I soon found a spot which offered at least some photo opportunities, so grabbed the camera and locked the car to take a few shots.  The opportunity turned out to be limited, so I drove on a little further and was rewarded with better views within the woods, and figures in the landscape, and to round off, I managed to capture a rainbow. This trip was therapeutic as the last fortnight was devoted entirely to reading the entire output of the next tome, covering the several additional features of this powerful piece of software, that has been a mainstay of my career for both the taking of pictures and their manipulation in retouching and montage. I purposely spent the minimum of time with Martin as he still had some more work to do as the deadline was Friday; I was luckier, in that my task was now almost over, hence why I relished the chance to get out from a darkened room in front of a computer and be driving in the country, and with the bonus of possibly taking pictures.

Day Before Nikon Gigrin Farm Visit

Monday was scheduled for a trip to Gigrin Farm near Rhayader in Wales, and I was lucky enough to be joining the organiser of the trip, Wildlife Photographer Chris Gomersall. Although this is under the auspices of Nikon UK, I had learned that the trips are camera-type agnostic, so sporting Canon equipment did not place me at a disadvantage or any additional cost burden. The red kite do not have any prejudices either, and they are not the only species of birds that attend the feeding station as I was to learn.

I set off with a clear GPS SatNav route to follow to meet up with Chris, but it did not account for a road closure close to my first destination, Potton – a bridge is being repaired, and this meant I had to phone Chris to find an alternative route to reach him. I arrived only five minutes later than we had arranged and we loaded the car with my camera gear and clothes and set off for Wales avoiding the motorway roadworks, breaking the journey at Telford. Along the way we both got the chance to know each other better and discuss a wide range of topics, not all related to what lay ahead at Gigrin Farm. One surprising incident was when Chris spotted a buzzard sitting happily on a road sign on our side of the road, he mentioned it to me and had I had a camera to hand it was so close I could have filled the frame using a wide angle lens!

We met rain and numerous light-controlled sections of roadworks even on these lesser roads, but arrived well in time to get our gear into the Brynafon Hotel and have some time at the afternoon feeding up at the farm where we took up station in the high hide. We were really lucky with the changing weather as during this ‘bonus’ time we were blessed with a rainbow that stayed for quite a while whilst the birds were still feeding.

We met up with one of the morrow’s delegates at the hide and learned he had seen a spectacular display at Aberystwyth of a Starling Murmuration, which decided us on the hour’s drive to coast to see whether we might be so lucky, but though they appeared briefly it was a very small flock that visited us! But the high tide and the skies still invited us to take pictures.

We joined up again with Daan and his wife at the hotel and suppered together enjoyably, all of us eager to repeat and improve upon that day’s shooting.