Bamburgh castle – Knightshoots Landscape Photography

Filming, ailments and Bamburgh Castle

Northumberland 2021: Part Six

8 and 9 June 2021

After struggling to sleep, I got up at 4, got ready and bounced down to the check in point – only apparently we were all in the wrong place so had to follow in convoy to the correct one. What a start – it kind of forewarned of the day I was about to have, although I had no idea at the time of course. The day proved to be one of the harder days on set, and much worse than I expected. The shoes hurt my feet terribly, and by 2, I was hobbling badly everywhere, fluids were minimal (well for someone that doesn’t like water they were – few chances to get tea and no squash to flavour the water they offered). Any breaks to get them anyway, were in short supply, and strongly curtailed, so the queues at the tea table made it almost impossible to actually grab a cuppa in time before being called back, although I did manage to get to my own squash bottle to get a drink on two occasions. Food was a running lunch – translation: a few of you are sent to eat as fast as possible and you have to get back to set as soon as you are finished – others are waiting! Rest breaks were few and far between, and rather annoyingly, the lead actors kept playing around, making us stand about waiting all the time. By 3, the icing on this cake was the rumour that had started to spread – we were all being cancelled tomorrow (which worried and annoyed a number of us who had come a distance or who had paid for digs for 2+ days)

Sure enough, when I eventually got to my phone, we were cancelled. 🙁 One day pay for all of this discomfort and inconvenience. Thank goodness I had planned to utilise this time for a mini photographic break for myself… others weren’t as fortunate and it had cost them financially for this productions pleasure. I can’t say that I wasn’t chronically disappointed as well however, despite my alternative plans and the pain I was in. The money I expected to earn from this was supposed to cover costs of my own trip at least… Le sigh – thus is the nature of this job these days! We wrapped at 5, and were duly released. Feeling very dejected I decided not to stay there the night and headed instead to Bamburgh. If there was a nice sunset at least I would be there this time!

It was empty when I parked up, but my feet were terribly painful still so I decided to relax for a bit before I needed to go out. Once seated on my bed, chilling and waiting for the sunset, I fell asleep – I didn’t even feel it coming. I was out! It was a couple of hours later when I finally woke but I felt really, REALLY, strange and very out of it. I picked up my phone to text my friend, and my son, but I couldn’t feel anything in my hands. This left me a little concerned so I did no more than have a cup of sweet tea, and a little supper before just sitting and watching a programme on my tablet. By the time that was finished an hour later, I could barely keep my eyes open, and decided that, no matter what was going on outside, I was definitely not going to play tonight. So, despite being barely 9pm, I went back to sleep and didn’t wake fully until gone 8am the next morning.

After a better sleep, and the weird evening last night, I decided that today I needed to rest, and that I wasn’t going to push anything. I couldn’t focus on where to go or what to do anyway, so decided to just stay put. I think a big bulk of the weird sensations of last night, and in fact the fuzzy lack of being unable to focus on anything today and on the Dunstanburgh day, may have been dehydration and exhaustion – so fluids and gentleness were my self prescribed instructions for the next day or two. I slowly got myself ready, had plenty to drink, some food, and at 11 thought I would go for a gentle walk just to get myself moving. My feet still hurt, so I took it slowly down the beach, taking a large bottle of squash with me.

On the walk, I spotted a group of interesting looking sea birds sitting on the seaweed through my binoculars, and after getting a reference photo (using my mobile up to the eyepiece… that was a weirdly complicated effort!) I headed back. I successfully identified the birds as Eider Ducks (yes, those of the ‘down’ fame, I had no idea that was from a specific bird – gotta love Google!) and planned a return to photograph them at some point before I left here. I mooched around in the camper for several hours after, making lunch, having a bit of a tidy and trying to take photos of a particularly loud pheasant in the field next to me (so good with the bird photography yesterday, so pants today!!!) I then tried to take a photo of the castle from the rape field next to me, after I saw another photographer nip up there.. As I left the camper though, the clouds rolled across, and by the time I got into the position I used last time, the sun was well and truly gone, so I walked all the way back feeling just a bit disappointed. Ultimately, the rape was well past its best, so it probably wouldn’t have been any improvement on the shot I took 10 days ago, anyway. On my return, I had a nap (I was obviously still exhausted!) then went out for a gentle walk in the evening. I had extraordinary light on the castle for a short while, and as luck would have it, had my Canon on me, so I snapped the shots while I could.

Beautiful Evening light on Bamburgh Castle

As I did, some other tourists took the same photos next to me, and I got stopped 3 times by people asking if I was trying to photograph Indie/Harrison Ford. Apparently they had been filming the new Indiana Jones movie here over the last few days. (Northumberland – the new Hollywood? Seemed like a whole bunch of filming was going on here right now!!) This put me off a little, as I felt like everyone was assuming I was a stalking paparazzi photographer even though I was anything but! – so went back to the camper, ate dinner, and watched the light outside just dim again without any drama. I found myself in bed relatively early again, and was asleep before the darkness was complete.

My Adventures

Dunstanburgh Castle, Howick Bathing House and Bamburgh Castle

Northumberland 2021: Part Three

28 May 2021

I woke up in good time, had breakfast and wandered over for my costume fitting. Once this was done I had a think of what to do today, and settled on having a look at Dunstanburgh castle, and Howick bathing house. To start with I thought I would just gauge the area, so headed to Craster to look at the nearest car park in readiness for a higher tide later today. There were only a couple of spaces in the car park, and, (much to my irritation) I had to park in one of them just to get out and have a look at the parking prices for later. It took a couple of minutes to read the prices and then get back to the van to leave, but several cars passed through in those moments and found no available spaces for themselves. My apologies to those that were right behind me but who had to leave when I ‘took’ the last space!

When I did leave, I headed further along the coast, to check out Howick bathing house. This area had looked really intriguing when I saw photos of it online, but when I got there, I realised none of the photos I had seen, were doing the area any justice. I had never seen a coastline quite like this before! The sections of sandstone were broken by swathes of a hard black/grey rock sliding down at a gentle angle into the sea. They formed a striking line against the edges of the white surf washing up against it. This location shows its former volcanic past here. It was once a lava bed and forms a huge area of volcanic dolerite in Northern England, which spreads all the way across from Cumbria. Research shows there were numerous lava flows in this area around a similar time (approx 300 million years ago) which form several small ‘sills’s’. These sills together make the overall region known as the Great Whin Sill and this particular flow, the Alnwick Sill, can be seen in patches all along the coast to Dunstanburgh. I found it awesome to stare at!

Dolerite rock revealing the volcanic past of this area

Eventually, I wandered further along a small path, just having a gentle stroll, no kit, no pressure, and making my way down to the waters edge. (being very careful as the tide was coming in, and some waves were really strong). I spent some time here just watching waves crash against big crags in the rock, falling away and making loads of mini waterfalls as they retreated… each wave being different to the last. It was very hypnotic, and I fell in love with this area as I just sat here. I had two thoughts for photos – Ideally this would look great with a high tide at sunset or sunrise… but did the two coincide for me..? Not during this visit… maybe its worth popping back later though… The second thought was to capture intimate shots of these small waterfalls… but I had sat here too long for that. The tide was getting high and missing the particularly picturesque craggy rock face which showed the waterfalls off at their best. I needed to come back and try that one at another time too…

Looking at the map, I realised Craster was the wrong side of Dunstanburgh for the shot I wanted, so I looked for an alternative spot, finding a long layby the other side of the castle that I could use instead. The sun was beaming, the temperature was hot, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. None of these lent themselves to any photographic excitement for me, so rather than trying for photos, I left my kit behind, and just went for a second long, relaxing, exploratory walk instead. I found a huge field of rapeseed in full bloom, and when I followed the farmers track into the field, the view with all this yellow – added to the beautiful fragrance here – blew me away! I sent this video to friends and family… and I ask you the question I asked them…When yellow is your favourite colour, is this the definition of being in heaven… I think it is!!

I walked down to the pebbled part of the beach and found the rough spot where many classic shots of Dunstanburgh are taken, but the sun was so hot, none of the stones stayed wet for long, and the shot I hoped to recreate looked drab and uninspiring to me. I ended up leaving this spot for now, perhaps when the tide had peaked and was on its way out, this would work better – and the light definately needed to be much gentler. For now, I decided to go back to Howick to try and capture the bathing house there, with a high tide lapping on the dolerite rock face. It was a few hours off sunset still, but the shot was worth taking now the tide was nearly at its peak.

The Howick Bathing house was built by Charles Grey, (Viscount Howick, the second Earl Grey and yes, he of the Tea fame) in the early nineteenth century. He had 16 children and built the bathing house as a spot for them to get fresh air and to bathe safely in the sea. As I stood fully enjoying the movement of the water with this lovely house in the background, I took loads of shots with the waves falling in different positions. I was loving all the variations each of the shots gave me, and I tried lots of different exposure lengths to see which worked the best… this one was my favourite in the end.

After this I sat for a while trying my hardest to get to grips with hand held photography. This has always been one of my weak points, and I am not very good at it. After some experimenting however, and careful thinking, everything finally fell into place in my head. I was able to capture pin sharp waves for the very first time, following them in with the camera and pressing the shutter at optimal moments. I was over the moon and excitedly snapped over 50 waves… now I just need to find a perfect spot and go out on a super stormy day!!!! (if I can actually remember what I did here of course – the excitement and exhilaration of an awesome storm is very likely to obliterate my memory banks entirely!!)

Woo hoo! Hand held wave shots capturing all the detail!

As the time went on and sunset approached, I considered going back to Dunstanburgh and capturing the castle in a nice light, and hopefully with the tide now heading out, with wetter rocks. I reluctantly left the waves here and headed back, but as I reached the camper, my phone suddenly leapt into life and a bunch of messages pinged to my phone. (clearly I’d had no signal down by the water) Most were just rubbish, but to my dismay, one was from an agent about a job I was due to do towards the end of the following week. They told me that a covid test had been posted to my home for me to do, and that I needed to post it back first thing Monday, in time for the results to be given to the production. This was unexpected, as no-one had said anything about doing a test in advance, and I had assumed it was going to be done on the day.

My dismay was sparked because it also meant that my trip was to be cut short by 4 days.

This threw me and I struggled to think on what I wanted to do, and where my mood suddenly dropped, Dunstanburgh didn’t feel like where I needed to be. I had so many places I wanted to explore before going home!!! Do I want to stay here? Do I want to cram in another new location quickly, do I want to go somewhere familiar in the hope of a sunset… what should I do, where should I go?!! My brain went into a real tizz trying to suddenly think all the planned locations through, and the only thing I could finally settle on was going back to Bamburgh, where I knew I had somewhere safe to park for the night and calm my thinking down.

As I very sadly drove back there, I noticed a haze affecting the orange evening light. As I got closer to Bamburgh, driving into it made the sight ahead of me look stunning – Deep oranges fading into layers in the mist, and the silhouette of the castle standing high on a hill, lay in front of me. I literally gasped at the sight but once my brain had engaged enough to realise what I was looking at, the roads were lined with double yellow lines – there was nowhere for me to pull over!!!! I regretted not having the camera on the passenger seat ready to quickly grab (I might have been cheeky, and stopped for a quick shot), but my mind was so distracted that all I could do was keep driving.

I pulled into my camping spot a few minutes later, and on seeing that the haze was actually a sea fog coming in, I quickly just grabbed the camera and hurried down onto the beach. The sight here was just SO beautiful!

With my back to the setting sun, the evening colours this way were all muted into pastel tones by now. With just one cloud over the castle picking up the warm hues, and two surfers to the far left in all black, giving it a little scale, I captured what was to be my favourite photo of the trip. This eased my current mental state, and as the fog began to thicken, I went back to the camper for the evening to eat, relax and to consider my options.

My Adventures

Bamburg Castle, Holy Island and Routin Linn Waterfall

Northumberland 2021: Part Two

27 May 2021

I woke up for the dawn, and looked out the window in full hope for a pretty sky… saw the cloud cover, pulled the curtain closed, and went back to sleep…

Thus was the start to my day!

I eventually woke up, and though the sky wasn’t quite as grim looking, it still wasn’t especially exciting. Instead, I took my time getting ready, and then had a gentle wander down the beach, exploring the area a little better than I did last night. To my horror, I found a ton of flies pestering me, (mostly) around the grassy areas. They weren’t biting ones thankfully, but there were a LOT of them, and they were absolutely everywhere! (eek!) My curiosity eventually got the better of me though, and I calmed myself a little (absolutely not a fan of bugs!) and I found myself watching them closer. They were a little odd looking as they flew around me, not like the traditional fly I knew and (didn’t) love, but ones who flew with legs dangling down behind them. I’d not seen flies like this before, so I took a photo on my phone of a stationary one as a reference to look up later, and noticed that most of the rest seemed to be pairing up… I guess today was clearly mating day! I now know these to be Hawthorne Flies or St Marks Fly (as they normally appear around St Marks day- I think the cooler weather this year has put them back a couple of weeks) The lifecycle of these insects is short… very short. Once they reach adulthood, (all at the same time) they have around one week to live apparently, and once the females lay their eggs in the soil, they die. Next time I see them I will try not to be quite so worried or irritated by them, as these are the last days of their time here, and they are just completing their sole purpose for living. Interestingly, these are the flies that fishermen emulate when they make fake flies as bait for their rods… bet you didn’t know that eh?! (well, maybe you did, but humour me here, and fake ‘OOoo’ with interest along with me..!!)

Hawthorne fly caught with my mobile phone

After I finished a rather long amble and explore of the beach, I went back to the camper and studied the rape seed field in full bloom next to me. Rape isn’t normally planted in the same fields year in year out, so it being here this year was a bit of a bonus for me to see, since it’s unlikely to be here next year. As I looked out on the sight of beautifully blossoming flowers, I wondered if the yellow field might make a good foreground for a castle shot, so picked my kit up and had a wander up the side of the crop to have a look. The yellow was lovely… but the sky was really letting me down. This shot would be one of those rare occasions where a clear blue sky might just set all the colour off – but alas, right now, this wasn’t going to be the case, the sky was a sad grey and not even a dramatic shade at that. I did give it a go however, it would be daft to not do so right?

I set up in a nice position where the edge of the crop dipped in a little and filled the foreground, and I was able to get the impression of being in the middle of the field, without actually standing in the crop itself. I then tried several shots, trying a set to focus stack where I struggled to get the whole view into focus in one shot. I wasn’t too excited by the photos I was getting – they just didn’t jump out at me in the way I hoped and even when I tried to focus stack during the editing stage, it was a real struggle. (Where the breeze was moving the plants, none lined up and the stack was just a mess) In the end I just settled for an image with the foreground in soft focus although I sadly couldn’t get it to ‘pop’ in the way I hoped. Despite this, I felt that although it wasn’t as nice as I imagined in the end, that it was still lovely to see such a mass of yellow flowers, and have this as a memory. They are my favourite colour after all.

Perhaps if the sun had been on this scene it would have been the striking image I had hoped for, so I will watch the area with keen interest for future opportunities!

Bamburgh Castle rising from the Rapeseed

After a spot of lunch I looked at my map and decided to find out where the popular Lindisfarne Island – or Holy Isle – was. I found the route easily, and pulled into the car park with no issue some 50 minutes later, but as I considered what I wanted here, I had a quick rethink. For me, I wanted a sunset or sunrise, and preferably tide out. Looking at the tide times on a board here I realised that the tide was actually already on its way in, and that later on tonight would be better for what I wanted. Judging by the timings listed here, this meant that I had two options right now… do I stay here and wait, or do I come back? The thing about this location is that it’s on an island with limited access. Once the tide starts coming in, the road to the mainland gets flooded and you are stuck until it goes back out far enough to drive over safely again… and right now remember, the tide was on its way back in ! The sky wasn’t too promising still, so I decided that maybe I would wait until later, and come back when the conditions were better suited to what I hoped for. I got back into Fred and made my way back out again, noting that the causeway would only have been drivable for about another 10-15 minutes, so it was lucky I had decided quickly!

Once safely on the mainland, I pulled over for a few minutes, and looked at where else I might check today, and found a waterfall I wanted to visit. Perfect for an overcast day, so I typed it into google maps and headed off. The route was easy at first, then it got to narrow roads, then it finally dropped to a single lane that seemed to go on forever. Eventually that ended at a private farmhouse and went no further. Gagh!! Where is this waterfall??!! There was no sign of it, and confused I did a (tight) turn and slowly drove back down the road looking left and right for anything that might indicate where it was. Did I miss a sign somewhere? A parking spot? A turn off?? Nope. Nothing. There was literally NOTHING there, no way off the lane and nowhere to pull over to walk – yet the sat nav persisted in trying to tell me to turn round. Eventually, frustrated, I decided to check every map and reference I could find, and found that there were actually two waterfalls in this area – both similarly spelled. Even though I had typed in the popular one (Routin Linn), and not the cascade (Roughting Linn), I realised that Google maps was actually directing me to the wrong one. Somehow (actually, it was an easy mistake by them), they have mixed the two and they direct you to the cascade instead of the falls – To my annoyance they don’t have the route for the second one however. I spent some time studying the route to the falls I wanted, and tried to guide myself there using the old fashioned method of looking at the map itself every so often… Go olde worlde methods! – I found myself finally at a spot where another car was parked and as I went for a quick explore, I bumped into two ladies who confirmed that this was indeed the spot for the falls. I grabbed my kit and headed off as they drove away.

The walk was fairly easy, just 5 minutes or so, with one steep-ish drop and when I saw the falls, their simple beauty had me immediately. As an added bonus, I was the only person here!

So many spots to photograph this fall from!

This was one of those falls that offered perfect photo opportunities to try out a whole bunch of shots I had seen from other falls online. The sun intermittently started breaking through, and I had so many opportunities for such ideal photos (well, for me anyway!)

There was the beautiful overall, dappled image (above), then there was the get down lower and use a specific subject to fill the frame more:

This log was perfectly positioned, and especially lovely when the sun danced across it!

There was the more intimate shot of the falls, seen from straight on…

… and the attempt at a more abstract image of the gossamer curtain of water…

I walked all around, and took as many photos as I could – well mostly because it was SO peaceful and I didn’t actually want to leave..!! Eventually, 3 hours later (!!) I had milked the scene for just about everything I could think of, so I had to leave… I took a walk around the area for a bit, and then tried a bit of bird spotting and photography. This is something I would love to do better, but I really struggle to even spot the birds sometimes (sometimes?! Be honest Sandy, you rarely spot them!!) – let alone identify or, heaven forbid, try to capture a photo of one!! – the pictures I tried were not great.. but they were good enough for a friend to identify that I had spotted both a (very noisy) chaffinch, and a buzzard – and they helped encourage my desire to try more at some point!

The dot very high above me, was this Buzzard.

After 4 hours at this wonderful spot I finally left and headed back towards Holy Island. The sky had totally cleared by now, but there was still a little hope that there would be a worthy sunset… and either way, as the tide was on its way out, I would at least be able to have a little explore without stressing about the tide cutting me off for many hours. When I got to the causeway, there were two cars tucked to the side, I think waiting, but I could see a fairly clear road, so drove on past them and made it with only a couple of puddles to drive through. It was 7.30 by now and about 2 hours to sunset, plenty of time to have a look.

The only downside to this timing was that everything was shut, so rather than explore the island fully, I decided just to head to the main attraction and look at the classic photographic positions to view the castle. The boat house spot really didn’t do it for me, so after wandering around there, I left without taking my camera out, and walked up the path towards the castle. To my pleasure, the little beach bit had a lowering water level, and the spot I wanted there was very easily accessible. Sadly the clear sky really didn’t lend itself to a fantastic photo, but it was a nice one to try, and one for the bucket list collection – been there, saw it, took the photo sort of thing, and even then, its not an entirely unsatisfactory picture. This would look so much nicer if I ever get the chance to try it with a characterful sky however. (now why wasn’t the sky like THIS. this morning?!!)

There was still a while before the sun was going to go down, so I decided to just have a slow wander right around the location. I was getting tired by now and I missed a few other possible shots, but I just wanted to wander, and considered this visit to be a recce to a look around a place I had heard a lot about but had never visited before. As I got up to the castle I noticed a path that continued round to a large grassy area to the left of the building and just followed it, enjoying the gentle stroll. As I crossed a small bridge at the back, I was struck by the sight of a gorgeous shaft of light that the lowering sun was throwing underneath me. Tired or not this was a sight that I couldn’t ignore! The colours were rich, the light just perfect, and I ended up taking a shot I haven’t actually seen anywhere else before.

Evening light behind Lindisfarne castle.

Shortly afterwards, the sun dipped behind a cloud on the horizon that wouldn’t leave, and although I hovered around the site just in case, the sky just dulled into evening light, and faded into darkness without any colour. I wandered back to the camper debating whether to try and stay for a dawn shot before leaving for my fitting in the morning (4am/8am = plenty of time), but the car park had ‘no overnight parking’ signs everywhere, and I had no idea where else I could park. More to the point actually – what would one do if you got stuck here at this sort of time – where could you park then?! The plan failed further when I also realised that the timings of the incoming tide and sunrise would be really tight to get off in the morning too, so I abandoned the idea and simply drove back to Alnwick, parking up where they had previously told me I was able to, in readiness for the morning.

It was 11:10pm when I pulled in, and boy was I ready for some sleep!

My Adventures

St Cuthberts Cross, Berwick Upon Tweed and Bamburgh Castle

Northumberland 2021: Part One

26 May 2021

So, a job in Northumberland meant that I had a new county to explore! I drove up the day before (leaving less than an hour after my second covid injection) as the agent had very kindly arranged a covid test first thing for me, parked up in a nearby layby to get some sleep after the long drive and was at the testing site first thing. Fortunately for me, one of the crew signing us in and guiding us on where to go, happened to be a local. As we got chatting, he suggested several locations that were worth going to, and I left aiming for the closest, St Cuthberts Cross and Church Island in Alnmouth. The car park he directed me to was no longer available, as the road to it has now been blocked off, but I found a nearby spot and started the hike down to church hill. The weather wasn’t particularly promising, but it actually suited the shot I hoped for with the Cross, so I wasn’t put off just yet. I pushed on past the little derelict chapel I noted at the bottom of the hill, aiming to get that as I came back, and breached the top of the hill at a fairly windy and cloudy moment. My intention to try and get a shot of a moody cloud streaking across the sky towards the cross, but I haven’t actually worked out how to get a shot like that. Seems wind/cloud direction and speed are a big factor! I tried several shots, most didn’t give it the bleak, lonely feel I wanted, because the background looked full and populated, but I finally found a spot I liked and ending up squatting down in a grassy part down the side of the hill. Several people passed through on daytime walks with their dogs, but everyone was lovely, and they all moved out of my shot really quickly. I guess this is obviously a popular spot! It also seems most photographers get nice sunrise or sunset shots from here, but where its up high and alone, I wanted a shot with a colder, empty, lonely feel to it. Although close to what I envisioned, my shot wasn’t quite what I hoped for a) because the clouds were blowing across the scene rather than into it and b) they were moving so slowly despite the wind, that I simply couldn’t get the effect no matter how hard I tried! I decided that I would have to retry another time but for now I was getting battered a bit by the winds where I was so exposed, so I decided I would try the little church lower down.

This little hill by the way is called Church Hill, and the cross is believed to mark the spot where in 684, the former monk and prior, Cuthbert, agreed to leave his life as a solitary hermit, and to become the bishop of Lindisfarne after King Ecgfrith of Deria and Northumberland petitioned him in person. He died a few years later in March 687, and was subsequently venerated to become Saint Cuthbert, one of the most popular saints in medieval England. I have no idea when this cross was first placed here, but this particular one certainly didn’t look ancient. If they are always made of wood they must eventually rot being exposed like this, so, I guess, must also need regular replacement. Its a nice spot to visit though, being high up on its own little hill, and surrounded by wetlands, with views across the river and coast that are well worth exploring.

Down this hill a little, near the bottom, are the ruins of a small mortuary chapel built around 1870. In the grey weather, I tried a couple of different positions, but the scene was a little flat no matter where I stood. As I contemplated what I could do here, two elderly gents passed by and got chatting with me. ‘Where is your accent from?’ asked one eventually. I have never been asked where I was from like that before, and for a brief second I stopped to wonder what accent (!!) We chatted for ages, and the men offered several other location ideas that I could visit, most already on my list, but it was good to hear confirmations on them, and recommendations for new ones! They went on their way, (actually inside the ruins) to have their lunch, and I noted a glimmer of sunlight trying to poke through onto my scene. This showed that the side I stood on was all in shadow, so I moved round and took a photo from the other side, which caught another, smaller, glimmer of light, and this time a hint of some moving cloud. The sun didn’t reappear again but I could see that above the low cloud, there were patches of blue coming. I waited for a while, but sunshine clearly wasn’t going to happen anytime soon here, and I ended up feeling that this whole location might actually be better at a high tide, with a nice warm morning or evening sun anyway. So I ended here and headed back to the camper for some lunch.

The small derelict chapel at the bottom of Church Hill.

As I sat in the camper making lunch and thinking of where to go, I decided that as I had a few days, maybe I should just start at the top, and work my way down, simply exploring and working out locations for now. Once I finished eating, I looked at my map, and headed up to the top of Northumberland and to Berwick upon Tweed in particular.

The drive up was really easy – one road pretty much! As I drove, the dark sky was to my left and lighter blue was coming through to my right. At one point I passed a sight that I have ever since kicked myself for not stopping at. Not that I could have done so easily from the dual carriageway I was driving on. It was the striking sight of a very dark sky, with the sun shining brightly on 3 white wind farm windmills, and lighting up the grassy hill in front into a lush green colour. It was a surprisingly beautiful and simple sight of something I would never consider photographing… but alas, it disappeared into the distance in my rear view mirror as I sped away at 60 mph. Its still in my head though, and I remember where it was – so should I ever get lucky and spot that sight again, I will make sure I stop!

As my drive on continued, I altered my course slightly. Before I hit Berwick, I decided to drive on another 5 minutes to just step (literally) into Scotland, simply because I randomly fancied getting as far north of England as I possibly could, and solely for s**ts and giggles – well since it was so close, why on earth not eh?! (is this work or a holiday? – does it actually matter?!!) I sent photos to the family of my feet in both countries, looked at the little bit of wall there, and tried to follow the route it would have taken with my eyes, since we are not able to follow it with our feet. There really wasn’t much else there to mark this otherwise important position, so the stop didn’t last much more than 5 Minutes itself. Childish giggles for myself over, I drove down to find my location.

Berwick Upon Tweed was on my list because I had seen a boat sculpture, a viaduct and a bit of the old castle all fairly close to each other and I hoped to find them to see if I could get them to work in one shot. I parked up and went on a recce trip, leaving all my kit in the camper (I suspected this site would look best at sunset.. which was still several hours away) I travelled through a really lovely park bit that was beautifully set out and very peaceful, and found the three elements for my hoped for composition very easily. I explored what I could, taking photos with my mobile but I couldn’t find a way to get all 3 elements in the shot together in a pleasing way (to my eye), so I just sat on the boat and relaxed instead. If only I were a few feet taller! This area was just SO peaceful though. Despite being in a big town, I could only hear birds and the tide lapping at the shore – it was an incredibly beautiful spot. The sun finally made a stronger appearance, and I found myself here for over an hour just taking in the calm and warm sunshine. I reminded myself that I was just 24 hours after the jab, so was mindful not to overdo anything -this weather and location being perfect to help encourage me to take things easy.

Awww… If only I was a few feet taller so I could separate the boat from the bridge!

As I sat I realised the tide was actually going out, and that by the time sunset would be here, the view might largely be mud rather than a nice reflective water. Since I hadn’t brought down my kit anyway I decided to just rack this one up as a place ‘yet to do’, and I picked another location for the evening. As the sky had mostly cleared, I thought there might be a chance for a nice sunset, so picked a location I thought might work perfectly, and one I had been dying to see in person. Bamburgh Castle – a castle photographed a huge number of times and one that was sure to look great regardless of what happened with the weather. I hoped this would be as equal a corker location for me, as it clearly had been for all the other photographers whose pictures I had admired. The drive was very easy (as were all the locations along this coastline I found!) and the walk to the beach was equally so. I was standing in position within a few minutes of parking and taking in the wondrous sight that was reflected perfectly in the wet sand where the tide was on its way out.

I wasn’t alone either, there was another couple here, both with their tripods out, Peter and Caroline, and we happily got chatting about the view, our experiences, locations we had visited and our kits. (Peter had the most awesome lightweight tripod, Caroline had the same Benro geared head on hers as I had!) They had been here a number of times before, coming up to Northumberland from Cornwall regularly to tour and get photos of areas they loved. They suggested a number of further sights for me to try, most, again, on my list, and a couple that weren’t. The longer we waited for the sunset though, the quicker the cloud in the sky dissipated sadly, until we were left with a clear blue sky and nothing to reflect the sunset colour. We all tried what we could however, and even though it was disappointing, at least we had a beautiful warm colour on the castle itself, and I had already manage a lovely reflection shot with some interesting cloud, when I’d first arrived.

Mildly disappointed it wasn’t looking like I would get a colourful sunset cloud, I looked behind me to see where the sun was in relation to the horizon (would there be enough time for any cloud to form?!!) and was in awe of the sight. It was just dipping behind the little lighthouse here, throwing the evening sky and sand into deep oranges over to the west, and silhouetting another photographer standing right behind me, that I hadn’t noticed turn up. She was a younger woman, very much focussed on what she was doing, chatting quietly with a man who was with her, so I didn’t distract her with conversation of my own (I tend to talk a lot sometimes!!) She was photographing the view I was looking at, and definitely had the right idea though, so I swung my camera around to capture this sight instead, photographing them in the scene (see header pic). I then stepped to her side and photographed the lighthouse as well. Seconds later the sun was gone, and the colour immediately dimmed with it.

I messaged a friend who told me that there was going to be a supermoon that night, and when I excitedly brought up my Photopils app, it looked like the moon may well come up behind the castle at around 1am!! Exhilarated at the prospect of a nice moon and castle shot, I decided to stay put with the camper and come out a little later. Within the hour however, there was heavy cloud on the horizon and by midnight the sky was covered… this wiped away any chance of seeing any stars and definitely not a supermoon. 🙁

The sun setting behind Bamburgh Lighthouse

With my options stripped, I just went to sleep where the camper was. Perhaps by dawn the sky might be clear….