#skipton

[thesilicontribesman]

Prehistoric Mace Head, found in a bog, Langcliffe, Craven Museum, Skipton, Yorkshire

[cottontownphotography]

Wider still and Wider - Skipton Panoramic

Forgive me for using A C Benson's words (from Edward Elgar's 'Land of Hope and Glory'). The lyrics go: 'Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds be set.' This post isn't about British nationalism, but about ultra wide angle photography, yet the lyric is still appropriate. You may recall that my husband gifted me a very old Canon 350D camera over The Holidays. So far I've been using a second hand Chinese Yongnuo 50mm f1.8 lens I found for £30 in a closing down, photographic sale. I needed something wider for landscape shots and lucked out with a 'scrap' Canon EF-S 10-18mm f4.5-5.6 IS STM lens. Advertised online, the lens was offered cheap for spares and repairs. There are some slight marks on the lens' front element. These don't however seem to affect image quality. The focussing and image stabilisation still work fine!

The images on today's blogpost were are all made from monochrome shots made in Skipton. Skipton is an old Market and Textile town in the historic West Riding of Yorkshire. The first shot features the town's cobbled marketplace, taken from just a few inches above the cobbles themselves. I grew up in the West Riding and Skipton was the gateway to youth hostelling holidays in the Yorkshire Dales. In our mid teens, a group of six girls, several of us Girl Guides, used to head up here on the National Coach for our school holidays, hoping for fine weather hiking and youth hostelling.

The spiral staircase above was shot looking downwards in a relatively new shopping precinct. It there when we arrived here years ago to go hostelling. In those days we wore wool sweaters (often handknitted by ourselves) to keep warm on cold March days. I came across this sheep outside a shop in one of Skipton's little Wynds. It seemed to be looking wistfully towards Cotswold Outdoors where sadly they sell 'fleece' sweaters (nothing like as warm as real cosy wool).

Much older and more picturesque perhaps is Skipton's parish church, close to its ancient Castle. I love the way the still bare birch trees and church tower are etched against the dark clouds behind them.

The town tends to be packed with tourists in summer. Today was an early March day with just enough sunshine to light up Skipton's lovely architecture. To the north were dark rain clouds adding a certain drama to some of the shots. An ultra wide lens like this gives converging verticals and a huge sense of depth, something which I'm still experimenting with.

If you are familiar with 35mm photography, 10-18mm sounds incredibly wide. The Canon 350D however is a crop sensor camera with a 1.6 crop factor (the sensor size is smaller than a 35mm negative). It is an 'entry level' camera (but perfectly good enough for me). This EF-S lens which only fits this type of camera is the equivalent of a 16-28 mm lens on a 35mm camera. Here's a shot of Skipton's Town Hall.

The ultra wide angle emphasises height in what is a majestically designed building with classical details. Other buildings in town are a little more vernacular like this cluster of houses by one of Skipton's canals. These houses stand by the little Springs Branch, a tiny little half mile canal that conveyed limestone, in the 1700's, from the Earl of Thanet's quarries beyond the Castle. The parish church stands beyond.

Walking up this tiny canal you come to Skipton Castle Woods; a beautiful piece of ancient woodland with towering trees and walking trails.

All around in the woodland are sculptures made from intricately woven tree branches.

It was warm enough for us to stop and picni, perched on a bench high above the Ellerbeck. My husband is in this shot, can you see him :-)

Beck is the Norse word for river which they use around here. They are everywhere, cascading down through the woods from the hills behind. The shot below was made using an 1/8 second exposure. It demonstrates how reasonably well the lens's image stabilisation works. The slow exposure blurs the fast moving water to give that milky effect.

On 18mm the lens functions like a wide angle lens rather than ultra wide as in this shot of Stanforth's shop window.

I hope you enjoyed this little trip around Skipton as I tried out my (new to me) lens. It arrived in a good deal less than 24 hours, posted out from MPB photographic here in the UK. Well done guys for getting it to me so fast; just in time for the weekend! The reflections in the Springs Canal Branch attracted me to take the shot below.

All shots were made on my 'entry level', gifted, Canon 350D with it's 'scrap' lens (£44). All shots were edited using Canon's Digital Photo Professional 4 (free download after inputting my camera's serial number). Text labels were added using Canon's Zoom Browser EX program (also free). It just goes to show that you needn't spend a fortune to pursue photography as a hobby!

Jane xx

[unteriors]

Vowles Street, Skipton, Victoria.

[leicamoments]

Heading North

Sunday's action was a West Yorkshire Women & Girls Cricket League Division One game between North Leeds and Skipton Cricket Club.

You can read about the visit here...

[mothyandthesquid]

We are at stall A7, Yarndale peeps!

[jumpneoshoots]

Skipton Canals

Apr0223

[venicepearl]

Skipton Castle is a Grade I Listed medieval castle in Skipton, North Yorkshire, England. It was built in 1090 by Robert de Romille, a Norman baron, and has been preserved for over 931 years.

[theyorkshirephotographer]

Malham Cove, Skipton