A recent gallivant along with my Bulgarian.
Weekend trip to Exmoor National Park in the trusty camper while we're looking after it for a while again. Photographically speaking my holidays are when I explore and take most of my landscapes, this time was no exception and the Exmoor coast provided me with a wonderful variety of weather, colour and scene content.
I like to keep a journal when I am travelling or holidaying, and I sorely miss the fact I didn't make one in Barcelona, so I have written my holiday up in the moleskin and transcribed some of it to this post to go in-between the photos.
Enjoy! We did.
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or facebook, are hugely helpful and welcome.
If you don't like something then please, tell me - Also try to articulate why, it is tremendously useful to have constructive, critical feedback.
From the Moleskine:
FRIDAY
"... through Porlock[...]in the evening, UP Porlock Hill. This thing is pretty big. 25% gradient for much of the way {little did we know how much hill the van was going to have to take this weekend}...
getting to the top there are the promised car parks for camping - but it's blowing a serious gale and the weather has come in {also pitch black by now, with the storm} - both of us feel rather worried about the trip now, but we go down a tier, face the camper into the wind ... and sunggle up in a shaking, rocking van to sleep."
1 Bossington Hill (from Porlock)
SATURDAY
"Awake slowly to raindrops [...] with gusts of wind... Uh Oh...
Peek out and a beautiful sunrise glow through rainy clouds passing swiftly by greets me.
'Quick Den, get the camera!' {Glendinning family only ref.!}
This I do, and battling the winds, in and out of squalls as storm clouds shoulder their way across the skies on their way Wales, I enjoy the morning with my {belovéd} camera. Yoghurt for breakfast.
2 Hurlstone Point
3 Porlock Hill - "Incoming!"
4 Wootton Common from Porlock Hill"
5 Home is where you park your bed, storeroom, fridge, cooker and engine. Preferably on a level.
View on the way down the cliff road to Lynmouth:
6 Hollerday Hill, Lyn Mouth
7 Sillery Sands, Lyn Mouth
"Along and down into Lynmouth (Lynton is up on the hill the other side of the river mouth). Park up and walk along the gorge. I take tripod and ND filter to make some smooth river shots whilst Bobby is happy reading. We walk as far as Watersmeet and head back"
9 Lyn Gorge
10 Lyn Gorge
11 Lyn Gorge
12 Horner's Neck Wood
14 Horner's Neck Wood
[Possibly my favourite two photos of the holiday - I need to spend some more time with rivers and water falls. I particularly love the effect of the wind in the different types of trees, swaying more or less, in the long exposures. The water stays the same in each shot, but the trees are always different.]:
15 River Lyn
16 River Lyn
"...So we go through Lynton (another killer hill) and stop in {the dramatically named} The Valley Of Rocks. Columns of black boulders looking like sea stacks in the making. Lots of goats and ponies here, and Chinese tourists also..."
18 Wringcliff Bay
19 South Cleave (The Valley of Rocks)
"It's getting crazy windy again so I decide climbing 'Castle rock', and getting a maximum exposure placement for a panorama of Wringcliff Bay is a great idea.
I come down thoroughly windswept and rather exhilarated, and in dire need of a cuppa."
Panorama rock:
I took the shots lying down with my back to the leaning slab, wind from behind me, holding the tripod down low, gripping the rock with my everything as the wing whipped my jacket making a whopwhopwhopwhop. As you can see there is a bit of a wee drop to the right.
Then the wind strengthened and became more persistent and I had to basically go prone. Tense.
20 Panorama Station *with extra wind*
I'm not even sure how the pano turned out yet.. I'll put it together if I've got a moment and add it as an update.
Hey, the experience most often counts for more than the result.
...
OK.
Maybe these next two are my favourites too.
21 Shoreline, Wringcliff Bay
22 Shoreline, Wringcliff Bay
23 Rugged Jack
24 The Valley of Rocks
"After that (this day never ends) we pootle on down to Lee Bay to shoot first some cracking waves breaking, whipped up by the wind, and then the sunset. We eat dinner here, parked above the bay."[feeling very content, salty, happy and peaceful]
Waves are to the sea as clouds are to the sky:
They both excite me WAY too much.
25 Lee Bay
26 Lee Bay
27 Lee Bay
28 Lee Bay
29 Lee Bay
31 Lee Bay
32 Lee Bay
Personal flag on this one.
34 Lee Bay
Didn't like the blue? Stuff it.
35 Porch Perfect
Our front door view, currently of the sea.
(EDITING: Silver Efex Pro with a manual film grain effect)
36 Lee Bay Sunset
37 Lee Bay Sunset
38 Lee Bay Sunset
39 Lee Bay Sunset
40 Lee Bay Sunset
"...as twilight falls we make our way down Lyn Gorge again, then up onto the moors (Brendon Common) to camp for the night. Perfect Freedom.
SUNDAY
No sun today. I get up and walk, enjoy the misty moor and climb to the trig on Shilstone hill. Come down and have breakfast and coffee whilst the princess of the camper arises. Fun self-portraits with the ND filter and spend the rest of the day on the moors, in and out of the camper in the misty, windy rain. This is fine though, after yesterday we both need a rest! Plus my National Geographic won't read itself."
41 Looking Out
42 Have Camper, will Explore
43 Prayway Meads - River Exe
44 Brendon Common
45 Brendon Common