Whitby in Infra Red

I took the Infra Red camera with me to Whitby, so the Abbey and St Mary's Church were ideal places to use it.  The Abbey now has a shiny new visitors' centre, created from a building which has been a burned-out shell for as long as I can remember.  It now houses a museum, ticket office and obligatory gift shop, through which one exits (of course).

Carol, Dave, Isla and Barney, posing for their picture on the cliff top.  I'm convinced that the gravestones are significantly closer to the edge than last time I visited.

A vigilant boxer, just outside the new visitors' centre.

These two appeared to be involved in an iPhone-based photo shoot inside the Abbey.

Whitby Abbey has several stone coffins, and it's a tradition to photograph one's children lying down in them.  It least, it was in our family (which may have been slightly strange).  Carol decided that she was going to repeat the exercise with Barney, which turned out to be more difficult than expected.

 What's the old saying about never working with children or animals?

Whitby in Colour

At the beginning of August, Isla and I made the journey to God's Own County (TM) in order to visit my sister and brother-in-law.  The adventure included an outing to Whitby: a place I love, having visited it regularly since the mid-1960s.  The first occasion was by steam train.  No, not the North York Moors Railway, in fact, but the original coastline service from Scarborough (before Dr Beeching started to wield his axe).  It's been a regular holiday destination since then, although we haven't been there for a while.  Not much has changed, and "crabbing" is just as popular as ever.

The famous 199 steps up to the Abbey were no obstacle for a young, fit labrador, and she certainly helped to drag me up them at break-neck speed.  We then had to wait until Carol, Dave and Barney (the Airedale Terrier) ambled up at their own - rather slower - pace.

Visiting the Abbey is always a treat, and it's great that dogs are now allowed in too. 

After tea and ice cream, it was time for the obligatory walk along the pier.  Again, nothing much has changed on the West pier, but the East pier (where I used to go fishing, many moons ago) is currently closed for refurbishment.  It always was a bit rickety.

After a day playing tourist, the pups were getting a bit tired.  Still time to play while waiting for the train to arrive, though..

...until Barney crashed out, that is.

Queen of Hearts

Reading David Cooke's recent accounts of how some of his exhibition acceptances were created has been fascinating, and they are well worth reading.  Completely coincidentally, a few days ago I was asked by Roger Hance if I could give him a selection of images which had been successful in exhibitions, along with the original unprocessed file and its history, for a talk he was putting together.  So often we only concentrate on the finished article, so it's always good to go back and discover the "sow's ear" which eventually resulted in the "silk purse" with which everyone is familiar.  David's articles and Roger's request have inspired me to do the same for occasional blog postings, so here goes.

To kick off, I thought I'd give the story behind Queen of Hearts - one of my most successful pictures, which has recently accepted into the RPS Members' Biennial and for publication in Portfolio Three.  It was taken in Whitby outside Botham's, my favourite bakery in the entire world.  Because I had the dog with me I was banned from entering the shop, so had to wait outside while my family went in to buy stuff for lunch.  The shop assistant started to replenish the stock in the window, and I had a few seconds in which to take a picture.

The lens was right up against the glass in order to reduce reflections, but even so - if you look carefully - you can see the tell-tale outline of Amber, my yellow Labrador, in the bottom left hand corner of the picture (see inset).

This is the original image straight out of the camera.  It was processed in a mixture of Photoshop and Nik Colour Efex.  Canon 5DmkII, EF 15 f/2.8 fisheye, 1/40s @ f/11, ISO400.

#NikSoftware #ColorEfexPro

...and then the sun came out

In the middle of the afternoon the clouds cleared and the sun came out.  That doesn't mean it was warm, of course (being Yorkshire) but everyone started behaving as though it was anyway.  We never did manage to get to the beer festival...

Because the middle of the town was heaving with people, Amber and I wandered onto the West Pier to escape the crowds.  This is a great place to observe traditional seaside behaviour on the beach below.

There were several pleasure boats steaming around the harbour, including an appropriately named speedboat and Whitby's old lifeboat which now gives pleasure rides.  The speedboat driver (pilot?) seemed to be in the middle of a late lunch, as I discovered when I looked at the pictures when I got home!

The pier itself is always a good place to watch the world go by.

The final two pictures from Whitby, looking back towards the town from the pier.  What a magical place...

People Watching

More from Whitby, illustrating some of the human specimens I observed while wandering around.  It was cold when we arrived, so there weren't very many people on the beach.  This person seemed to have the right idea.

The next group struck me as "three of a kind".  I'm not sure I'd want to meet any of them on a dark night...

Others were sitting, watching the world go by.

Shops and Cafes are always good places to observe human behaviour.  The Cafe, in this instance, is the world famous Magpie which serves the best fish and chips ever!

The centre of the town became really busy towards the end of the afternoon, so I retreated onto the West Pier where the last two shots were taken.

Not quite sure why, but I seem to be going through a bit of a monochrome phase at the moment.