Landscapes – Lee Orchard Photography

Hello 2019, Hello Valley of Rocks!

By Lee | January 8, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Happy New Year to all my readers and customers.

So, it’s yet another new year, Christmas all done with and back to work for everyone.

New Years resolutions or not, there is nothing to stop you getting out with your camera and visiting places.

Living in Surrey for most of my life, there was plenty to see, but since moving to Devon, it’s opened up a whole new world of places. So, as the kids were still on holidays we’ve managed to get out a visit a couple of new places already.

Our first trip this year was to Valley of Rocks in Lynton. By the time we’d got out and got to Lynton, then found the ‘free’ winter car park, that was no longer free in winter, then walked to the valley it was nearly 3pm.

The sun was starting to set, it was cold, but it made for some great photos, even if they were tricky with the position of the sun.

The valley is an incredible site and definitely a place to visit and explore. As we were pushed for time, we just walked down to this viewpoint and followed the cliff path back, which gave some impressive view too!

The cliff walk took us all along the cliff, (back to where we had originally driven too, but couldn’t park) with great views back to the rocks lining the coastline and path and view towards Lynmouth. The walk also took you over the Lynton Cliff Railway.

I’ll post our next trip out in a little bit, so check back soon.

Wheal Betsy

By Lee | October 15, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

Back in June I finally got to visit Wheal Betsy.

I’ve driven past it many times and this time finally decided to stop! It’s accessed via a small track that was a bit difficult to find and access from the main road, but once on it, you just follow it down to an area where you seems to be able to park. You can see Wheal Betsy sitting above you over the parking area.

Take the path to the left and follow it up to the mine.

As you walk around the mine, and take a few steps back, you’ll notice something unusual. It has a leaning chimney stack. Wheal Betsy is quite well known for this!

The mine and scenery just cries out of a black and white version.

A bit farther up the track and gaining a bit of height you get to see the views that you glimpse from the road.

It’s a scene that you, (or at least me), just had to take a panoramic photo of.

It’s a love place to go to have a stroll around. It is also a National Trust preserved site, which is always good to see!

A Foggintor Visit

By Lee | October 29, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

In my continuing exploring of Dartmoor I have recently found out that very close to where we visited in August was a quarry with a small lake or pond in the middle.

So, as it was half term and time to get a bit of fresh air, we headed in search of the quarry and other interesting things.

Dartmoor just doesn’t disappoint. Firstly you have the views…

You just can’t not take photos when given this as a view.

Secondly you have the interesting features and Foggintor definitely has them. Following the path, actually it’s old railway track, the regular flat stones with 4 holes are bit of a give away, but more path these days, you head towards an old settlement area. Then this disused ruin of a building from the time when the quarry was in use.

Opposite the building is an opening, through what was a big part of Foggin Tor mound, you see hight cliff edges. Stepping of the big chunks of granite strewn around the ground you pass through the opening into the quarry.

Although not a massive quarry, it was one three great quarries on Dartmoor and is big enough is still to impress. I know I was! During the 1840’s it supplied the granite that was used to build famous London landmarks, like Nelsons Column and London Bridge. Locally it was used in the construction of Dartmoor Prison.

It’s view on a day like today, was definitely worthy of a panorama photo.

I found it a bit tricky to get to the quarry floor beside the lake, so we gave that a miss. There are just views everywhere and so we explored the surrounding area for about another hour before heading back to the car.

Sadly we couldn’t stay till sunset, but I was still stopping and taking photos on the walk back, capturing this one with the sun starting to warm up the view.

This is a nice straight forward walk to this quarry with lots of photo opportunities on route.

I’ve taken more Panoramas and Vertoramas that can be viewed in their relevant galleries.

If you fancy visiting Foggintor Quarry, here is the walk I took.
I parked in a small car park just off the B3357 past 2 other after Merrivale.

If you have the Dartmoor 365 book, this walk covers squares M6, with the Quarry in N7, although the box doesn’t actually reference this quarry.
Grid Reference SX 5666 7358

Panoramas

By Lee | August 13, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

Since moving to Devon, I’ve been inspired by the landscapes and the beaches and this has reignited my landscape photography. I’ve now started to take this one step further. The landscape is so amazing it needs more than just a 6×4 ratio photo.

When I visited a part of Dartmoor back in February I took my first panorama photo for years.

The result was just, WOW, so this panorama was quickly followed by another from a trip to Brentor

Then another in Brixham, of the harbour, which I think worked really well,

As you can see, there is a difference between the top 2 panoramas and the one above. This is purely the orientation of the camera when the photos are taken, IE, landscape, or as in the latter, portrait.

Even a photo of a local cornfield in a panoramic format give it a lot more impact.

A recent trip to Stourhead I knew would produce a great opportunity for a panorama photo. This image is made up from 12 landscape format photos stitched together to great this amazing view of the lake.

Museums are also good places for panoramas as you can’t really get everything into 1 shot. Although lighting can pose a problem, especially if you are not using a tripod.

This is one from the Fleet Air Arm Museum, made from 5 images.

Finally beaches, and what better way to show off their magnificent views!

Now viewing these in this blog post is all well and good, but the size is a bit limiting, so why not view the panoramas page and view them full size.

First Visit to Dartmoor

By Lee | January 14, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

One of the places that I really looked forward to visiting when we moved to Devon was Dartmoor.

But where…

Dartmoor is massive! I asked a few people on the #DartmoorHour Twitter feed and got some suggestions.

At the moment we are a bit restricted by a pram but we gave it a go.

So, we choose Meldon Reservoir for our first visit. Initially it was easy going on a stone path, then the dam itself. It then got a bit more tricky down the edge of the reservoir.

After our initial attempt, and our little one deciding she wanted out of the pram, we started afresh carrying her.

The views over the reservoir were pretty amazing as were the surrounding views and the dam too!

There were of course also sheep wandering around?

You can’t walk all around the reservoir these days, do we decided we should head up and see the views. It’s quite steep and can be a bit of a slog if you head directly up it like I did (I wanted to get to the top).