Spring Bluebells already?

 Just a short walk this morning with the dogs along the banks of the River Tees from Barney. Once again it was weather more akin to high Summer than an April day.Not only are the trees coming into lush green leaf but to my surprise I came across a bank of Bluebells almost in full flower. Combined with the bright yellow of nearby Gorse bloom it made a delightful sight.

Bluebells and Gorse

There are a couple of places here in Teesdale where the show of Bluebells is rather special and I have made a note to take a visit there in the next few weeks.

Heading to the hills

  Another early start to make the most of this continuing good weather. I had planned a route which meant the early start should give me the best light on some of the fells that I needed to photograph. Unfortunately this still high pressure has come with the drawback of a large amount of haze. Even in the early morning light the effect of the haze spoilt some of the potential for great shots.
 I did come away with a good selection of photographs from what was a good route over Nethermost Pike and Helvellyn with a descent off Striding Edge. More importantly I obtained my target references for my painting project.

Striding Edge.

The full set of photographs from this walk can be seen on the website: www.theteesdalegallery.co.uk and visit the On Location section.

In The Press

 Following the recent photo competition organised by TBI I had to pop over to collect my runners up prize in Hartlepool. The press release about the event ended up in two newspapers yesterday, The Northern Echo and our local Teesdale Murcury. This is the photo from the NE.

Scafell Pike on a Sunday?

 Usually I try and avoid heading over to the Lake District on a Sunday especially when the weather is pretty good. However today I took a chance and headed west as the forecast for the coming week looked unpredictable. I was on for a long day out trying to obtain as many references as possible for my Wainwright Project. It was a glorious day with good sunshine but with light haze.

Afternoon above Wasdale Head.

I managed to obtain a few reasonable shots so watch this space for the results. To see the route and some examples from the day check out the gallery website: www.theteesdalegallery.co.uk and click on the On Location section.

Odd sort of a day in the Lakes

Yesterday was as forecast, a beautiful Spring day, rather warm for this time of the year but with bright clear skies. I made the most of the opportunity to head over to the Lake District to find some of the odd locations for my Wainwrights project. This involved doing three shorter walks instead of one longer one, in fact I only took in one summit on the whole day.
 There were some excellent opportunities for great photographs today but with such a busy itinery for the day I was on more of a mission to get my important references than capturing the scenes.

Dovedale.

An extra concern about the photographs is the fact that today I could have benefited from the facitilty to use the odd filter or two, a feature that I dont have on the small Samsung. To see the rest of the photographs from the day visit the website: http://www.theteesdalegallery.co.uk/ and the On Location section- Dovedale and Clough Head.