Last year, when visiting Lake Viaduct, I wrote about a choice of return route. We could have headed to Rattlebrook Railway area, or up over Sourton Tors.
We chose the Tors and it was a great choice!
When we got to the top the view was amazing and then the sun came out and gave everything a warm feel producing some lovely photos.
The Tor itself is quite spread out and quite a dark rock, so a little light really added to the final images.
It’s also quite an easy access to get to, so well worth exploring.
The car park is a couple of hundred yards before this gate.
I haven’t written a blog post in ages (how many times have I written that) but I really should.
I have done lots of photography, Portraits, Pirates to Body Confidence shoots, and lot exploring dartmoor and crossing off the 365 squares. So, there has been lots to blog about.
So lets try and remedy this.
Autumn was short and wet, which meant not much time to capture the lovely colours. However as seen in ny last posts I did managed to capture some of it.
Some photos I didn’t post, were a surprise, it happened at the end of a walk and I was lucky that I had time to return to the car, and get the tripod and capture some lovely photos in the space of about 20 minutes.
However, before that, our walk started with a search for a small cross and a long walk up a path.
This is one of the closer locations for us on dartmoor and we hadn’t visited it before. We were of course crossing off another couple of Dartmoor 365 Squares on our Map.
Our walk took us through fields and then followed the river. I hadn’t taken the tripod from the car and actually was glad not to be hauling it on this long walk, so I had to improvise with my method for take the longer exposure images.
The river had some lovely locations, with little obstruction of view.
One the closing section of our walk and about half a mile from the car we came across a lovely location. This is what I mention at the start of this post and I just had to go back to the car to get the tripod to get these shots.
If you follow my posts (I hope someone does) and you know I recently visit Dartmoor, you’ll also know that at about this time last year I started exploring long exposure photography and struggled getting good result. You can read about it here > Long Exposure Photography (Part 1).
By the beginning of the year I was starting to get good results. I did a little more in the summer, but Autumn is really were this comes into its own.
I don’t tend to resist places very ofter, but whilst on a walk a couple of weeks ago, I found this lovely location. Using a Woolly Hat as a support and hoping the big tractor that past during these photos, would rattle the camera into the brook, I managed to get this lovely photo.
Now as we all know, autumn is a very short time of year, so finding good locations is a must and then hope for good weather and also hope the storms hasn’t blown the leaves off the trees!
Our recent trip to Burrator was really good weather, but after exploring the reservoir we revisited the above location, with tripod in hand for some more photos. It started raining!
So, this made photographing the river under the trees even trickier. It was darker and trying to keep the rain drops off the filter was very difficult. Needless to say, I didn’t always succeed and some photos had water droplet marks on them.
The wet conditions though did really make the colours pop!
It’s always lovely when you come home dry off the gear, download the photos and see what you have!
I’ve been out and about a lot recently on Dartmoor, taking photos as I explore and hike around.
This is great fun and gives me lots of interesting photos. The downside is so many to get on the website and highlighted for people to see.
So, I thought I’d mention my recent trip to Burrator Reservoir. I posted it on facebook and it got a lot of interest, so thought I share it here!
It was the first time I’d been there, although we had been at the far end the week before on another walk but not close to it.
We had some great weather, to start with…
The dam itself is a really nice design and you can get quite close.
Quite a tight angle top view, but creates an interesting photo.
We also found a way to get down to get a nice front view.
There a few view points and some lovely little bit around the reservoir, however on this occasion, I had a plan in mind and drove to the other end of the reservoir, to where I need I could get some nice long exposure river photos.
I’ll put that in another post, but it was a challenge as it had started to rain!
I love exploring and regularly explore Dartmoor, finding new places and crossing off squares on my 365 page.
Lake Viaduct was one place that we had tried to visit earlier in the year, but had to abandon. However, this had given me a chance to review the route and when we revisited we approached from a different direction.
The descent to it was quite steep though and it disappeared from view. We eventually got down to the river and followed that towards the viaduct.
Getting up close to the viaduct, and underneath it, provided some great detailed photos.
Then we decided an ‘easier’ return trip heading up the ridge of the valley to the top.
Then finding a view back down the valley with the viaduct at the end. You can barely see it in the photo.
From here, it was either towards Rattlebrook Railway, or Soutron Tors. We chose the Tors and as it turned out, I got some amazing photos… that is for another post!
I take so many photos and post them to my website, but they get lot in the numbers.
So I thought I should maybe do a photo of the Month and backdate it to January this year. The problem is, I take lots of photos a week and sometimes really like a lot of them! So choosing a photo of the month is tricky.
So, I failed for January and really wondered if I should do photo of the week!
Continuing my quest for Dartmoor 365 Squares, in May we headed out out to F4, F5 and G5. Or to put it in normal language, High Down Ford, Great Links Tor and Widgery Cross.
The order as it turned out, was F4,G5,F4. As with a lot of Dartmoor it teases you and lulls you into a false sense of a ‘nice’ walk. Of course all walks on Dartmoor as ‘nice’ but some lets say, are more challenging than others.
F4, easy!
Then, ok so you want to visit G5, here is it!
The path looked straightforward and was really, but as you got further along it just got steeper and steeper.
I must add at this point. I like walking and can easily walk for hours, but I am quite ofter carrying a big heavy camera racksack on my back!
Any way, let just say, there are great views from the top and its worth the climb.
This tor is very interesting and very distinctive with the Cross on top. Created for Queen Victoria Golden Jubilee.
Turning around, we could then see Great Links Tor in the distance and as we’d ascended to a nice height of 452m, the gentle incline to 568m (see my Tor page) was easy.
This has to be one of the most interesting tor on Dartmoor. Amazing lines in the tors, gaps to look though and around and a big valley drop of on the far side.
Whilst exploring, I heard a noise and immediately recognising the sound as a helicopter, it was approaching the other side of the tor.
Running to a gap I got this great photo between the rocks.
Only having a very wide angle lens, made for difficult shooting, but I’m really pleased with how these came out.
This was a great experience, which topped off a brilliant day of exploring.
On returning home, I post these to a facebook ground, and coincidentally was commented on by an ex-military photographer, how happened to know the pilot and the photos were shown to the people on board to!
Over the years I’ve been visiting Dartmoor I’ve tried to always learn about the landscape and area that I’m visiting.
One of the trickiest has been identifying tors from a distance without a grid or GPS reference.
Tors photos are all well and good, but sometimes just show the tor up close.
So, I’ve decided to make my own tor list. It is not perfect and still probably won’t help everyone, but it’s still fun to create and gets me climbing tors!
Here’s a few photos from it.
This is Links Tor, shown from different angles.
This is Middle Staple Tor
The idea is some long distance and close up photos from different angles and although I can’t cover all aspects, I’ve included Grid References and What 3 Words.
It might help a few people, if not, I’ve had fun exploring them.
The list currently has 19 Tors, so a long way to go and a lot of walking too!
As well as my studio based beginners workshops I also run on location workshop, both full day or mini.
This week I ran a mini workshop on Dartmoor. We chose the lovely location of Foggintor. Starting at the car park we headed down the path. We didn’t get far before we stopped for the view and then started the session.
These workshops are ideal for people who like the outdoors either Dartmoor or the Coast.
We cover the all the shooting modes and look at compostion and what lens to use.
Walking further down the path, the ruins start looming up in the distance giving more shooting opportunities.
This location is ideal for a mini workshop. The ground is flat and the main quarry and ruin are within a 20 minute walk.
Coupled with stopping to take photos, and the photography tutoring and discussion results and changes, make it an ideal location.
Mini workshops last approximately 2 hours and cover everything to get a better understanding of you camera.
Then, if you are just moving to shoot RAW, you come away with a batch of photos to do a follow-up Lightroom tutoring lesson.
If you want to learn more about your camera in an outdoor environment, please contact me to discuss a mini workshop.
Following on from my post in November, Walking the Coast, we have been slowly walking the South West Coast Path and trying to join the dots of the locations we visit.
Before then covered a bit of ground in October
Westward Ho!, then another time Widemouth to Millook
Lovely inland views
and dramatic Millook Haven
In November, as mentioned we walked from Sandymouth to Duckpool. The problem we have is we are limited on time and have to always do the return walk to the car.
Sandymouth to Duckpool
We tried Brownham to Hartland Point, but realised it was too far, plus is wasn’t great weather.
So popped back to the car to get a bit closer a Titchberry and walked from there.
Crackington Haven was our last trip, but didn’t connect that with any other point either, so just a walk along the path.
Mixed in with these was trips to Dartmoor, but that’s another post for later.