Golden Light Over Stanage Edge

Over the last week I've given you a million little previews of this blog post, but finally, I have got around to working on the photos and uploading them to bring it all together here...

As has often been the case recently, I'll keep it short on words and let the photos do as much talking as possible. We arrived at Stanage Edge around 6 o'clock (I seem to remember) and even on the short walk up to the top, it was instantly clear that the light was going to be very kind to me...

The approach to Stanage Edge, bathed in beautiful golden light

Lose Hill, Hollins Cross, Kinder Scout and Grindslow Knoll

I have loads more photos for you this week - so again, not too many words but plenty to look at.

What with being limited to public transport, and therefore staying within the rough area of the Hope Valley where the train can drop us off, a lot of these photos are of places you've seen on this blog before - but as always it is nice to try and make something new of the same locations. I hope I have managed to do so, but if not then there are always some new ones toward the end from where we ventured into new territory for us!

I started the day with the 9.20 train to Hope so I could get in an extra couple of hills before Keri joined me later... so I had to rush the first 5 miles into an hour to be on time and what with it being so warm last weekend, the ascent of Lose Hill at almost slow jogging pace nearly killed me. After reaching the top, I had a walk along the ridge over Back Tor and then down at Hollins Cross into Edale to meet Keri - who by that point had already spent an hour enjoying tea and sandwiches at the always-lovely Pennypot Cafe. (They were also kind enough to fill my massive bottle of water up after I drank it all on this first little section!)

View along the ridge to Mam Tor from Lose Hill

2 Rules, 51 Faces, 16 Months and 2 Cities.

As some of you may have (but probably have not) noticed, this last week saw me passing the midway point of my 100 Strangers project - so it seems like a good point to go back and look at what I've done so far. Over the last 16 months I have spoken to more strangers than I probably ever expected to in my whole life, and each has been interesting in their own way - at least enough for me to want to get a photo, and sometimes enough to hold onto me for hours in conversation. In this post, I intend (but could well go off topic) to have a look at some of my favourites so far... whether that be due to the background story (for example, one anonymous stranger who I found out only had months to live), the quality of photo, the beauty/masculinity of the subject or anything else that makes them stand out to me. I should probably also point out that if you are one of my strangers and don't feature here - I actually like all of my photos, but couldn't put them all in the post!

A good place to start, would probably be with my first ever stranger... which I look back at now and wonder what on earth I was thinking, camera-wise (eyes underexposed, poor vignette added...), but I had to start learning somewhere...

Canon 450D, 17-85mm @ 85mm, f/4

A Walk Up Win Hill

I have quite a lot to do at the moment, hence no post last week, but I have put aside this time to at least publish some sort of post! I intend to make it very light on words, and give you plenty of pictures to make up for it as that will at least save me a bit of time... So here we go... I'll start with this photo to hopefully lure you in to the rest of the post...

View along over Lose Hill and Mam Tor from Win Hill.

Ingleborough: Our second peak of the week.

As can be seen from last weekend's post, last week we conquered the tallest hill in the whole of Yorkshire, Whernside... and this week it was Ingleborough's turn. As I also mentioned last week, Ingleborough is my favourite hill/mountain for so many reasons - from the impressive profile, panoramic views and limestone scenery to the variations from steep climbs to gentle slopes, it has a bit of everything stuffed into about 10 miles of walking. The start point of our walk, Clapham, is a perfectly picturesque dales village with a stream down the middle, numerous little bridges and even it's own waterfall - so certainly not a bad place to spend a little time wandering around also - although there was no time for that this time after quite a late early afternoon start.

My favourite shot of the day, taken on the way back, past Ribblehead, in the low evening sunlight

Whernside: The Top Of Yorkshire

Last week we, finally, went for a walk up Whernside - the highest 'peak' in Yorkshire at 736m above sea level - on what turned into a lovely hot summers day. We set off from the always impressive Ribblehead viaduct on our ~8 mile round trip never having been to the top of this hill before - which I still can't really believe. The other two of the three Yorkshire peaks (Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent) were clearly visible the whole way through as a result of the lack of cloud, with Ingleborough looking particularly imposing - so much so that we have been lured into walking that again tomorrow, so you can expect a post on that next week. 

Ribblehead Viaduct

A Taste Of Essex

This has been by far the longest gap between blog posts, for which I greatly apologise - I've just been too busy, not to write the posts, but to get out and do anything worth writing about. Last week I went down to Essex to visit Keri's parents for a week of holiday and got plenty of opportunities to go out and take some photos... the only downside is that this could well be my last visit to the south for the foreseeable future as her parents are moving up to Grantham as soon as they can. 

Much time was spent at the beach (in that little bit of summer we had), loads of visiting cafes and tearooms was done, I climbed a tower and, as many of you will have seen - I chased an amazing sunset...

So here are the photees...

Dovercourt Beach