Take Us To Your Leader

Another night under the stars last Sunday (21st October, 2018) after a photography day out in the heart of Middleton in Teesdale. Clear skies were on show as we arrived back in Sunderland around 9pm, so it seemed a good idea to prolong the photography. I would have been working a night shift, but I had booked a holiday in, so I was keen to get the most out of my day off the grind. We headed to the coastal area at South Shields, South Tyneside, to attempt a star trail at an artwork near the Little Haven Hotel. Conversation piece, or The Weebles, as they are known locally, would be the creepy subject of tonight's star trail. It worked well - an hour of the earth's rotation was captured on an increasingly cold night.

The Weebles - copied and pasted from your friend and mine - Wikipedia...

These magnificent statues, affectionately known as the 'weebles', are a firm favourite with visitors and residents alike. Situated next to Little haven Beach at the mouth of the Tyne in South Shields, the 22 mysterious figures stand in various poses; some deep in conversation with one another, others simply gazing out to sea. Each figure is approximately 1.5 metres high and weighs approximately a quarter of a ton. They are a fitting tribute to South Tyneside's glorious coast and a poignant posthumous monument to the work of internationally acclaimed Spanish sculptor Juan Munoz.

Catch ya later … Ash

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Hello again and welcome to another rare blog entry - my first of 2018. I've had some recent issues regarding signing in to my Blogger account, but hopefully they are now a thing of the past and I can reignite this page once and for all. This is easier said than done, however, but I'll get my act together one of these days, trust me.

And so it continues with more writings. Planes, trains & Automobiles - an account of a recent visit to a train graveyard in the North-East of England. An ideal place to practise some more night time photography under a sky full of stars. Make no mistake - this graveyard is one hell of a place to visit with the camera. Without doubt a place of unending interest - a place where your thoughts can very easily be transported back in time to an era that you never actually experienced. I stood there, surrounded by trains, carriages and trucks from a bygone age, all ancient and disused. This was a museum of relics, most of which were standing idle on short sections railway lines, accompanied by a platform, a station, a turntable, amongst others. As a photographer of the night sky, this place was a gold mine of foreground interest - an absolute gem of a place that I was wanting to bring into my photography. The scene was set. All that was now required came in the shape of two camera's on tripods and a boat load of patience from myself. Put the two together and the results are shown here.

Me and our Chris had visited this place three months ago to attempt a star trail. 40 minutes in and some unexpected clouds drifted across and closed things down. It was a disappointment, but not to be derailed, it was a case of waiting for another opportunity to eventually tick this one off. Three months had passed before the opportunity presented itself. This was New Years Day, 2018. Clear skies were here once again. Factor in a 20 minute drive to this location and it was game on once again. Let's get this party started. Upon arrival it was quite chilly, with a slight wind thrown into the mix. Once parked up we went through the gate and headed down the ramp towards the graveyard. Once down in the dip there was a very noticeable temperature drop and the wind that was is suddenly no longer. Looking above it was a sorry sight. Cloud cover was claiming at least 70% of the sky and certainly not what the weather watchers had forecasted earlier in the day. Hmm, looks like we'll have to wait it out. Have faith in the weather watchers and thou shall be rewarded.

For almost an hour, we scouted out the best spots for our imminent star trail. Once decided, we killed time by photographing some of most eye-catching trains and trucks until the sky had cleared. In fact, some of this unwanted cloud was beginning to play a part in my first shots of the night. It was fast moving and a couple of five second exposures pulled in some great results. There was a full moon tonight, which was to play a big part in our star trails, as it sat in an ideal position behind us, lighting the scene perfectly. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? Not a bad way to start a new year, with the pieces of the puzzle falling nicely into place. Neat.

PLANES -
Oh there was more than a few. Yeah, we were close to a flight path and the new year traffic was
in abundance. Nothing new there then. There would be some canny Photoshop wizardry going on tomorrow remove those plane trails.

TRAINS -  
Awesome foreground. Relics of interest. Dozens of them, adding to a scene that an astro photographer would lap up in no time. I've picked out some interesting foreground in the past, but photographing this stuff beats the lot. Even the abandoned aeroplane in Cumbria. Oh yes, it doesn't get better than this.

AUTOMOBILES -
With heated seats! With the shots in the bag it was time to get out of this place. Heaters on, radio on and yes ... those heated seats, too. A quick stop off at our local kebab shop rounded off a great night.

And those star trail shots. Yeah, one lasted 100 minutes in total. After setting the Canon away I moved a few metres down the track to set up my Sony a7s. Ten minutes of preps and the camera was now set up and firing. This one would run continuously for around 90 minutes, after which time we stopped our camera's and packed up, before heading off site and into the warmth and comfort of the 'Automobile'. Another job done. I love nights like this. The images were collected and in the bag. 

Camera settings ~ (star trails)
Canon 5D3, Samyang 14mm prime, Aperture f2.8, 30 seconds x 200 exposures, ISO 500

Sony a7s, Canon 16-35L, Commlite Adaptor, Aperture f4, 30 seconds x 180 seconds, ISO 400

(single shots)
Canon 5D3, Samyang 14mm prime, Aperture f4, 15 seconds, ISO 500, with torch to light foreground


Until the next time, cheers

Ash

RAF Spadeadam & The Galactic Core

Welcome back once again to the final part of my RAF Spadeadam adventure. It was another journey west to the county of Cumbria to take in some more night time photography - this time I had Milky Way in mind, as a backdrop to the Lockheed Shooting Star airframe, on barren wasteland. By this point I had already done the customary recce visit, followed by my first night trip to attempt a star trail or two, so all that was left to tick off was the Milky Way, with its galactic core on show at this time of year. Another Friday night and another trek across the boggy field to the spot that I would spend an hour or so of my time before heading home. Naturally the conditions were favourable and clear skies were overhead once again. The elements were on my side, so it was up to me to finish the job off and get out of there.

On arrival we found 3 parked cars near the access field. I noticed one of them immediately - it belonged to Mike Ridley, fellow Nissan worker and astro photographer, amongst others. It looked like he had arrived before us, unknowingly of course. Once again I was with my brother Chris. I certainly wasn't gonna take this trip on my own. We headed across the field towards the aeroplane and we could clearly see torches wafting about in the distance. A few minutes later we reached the plane and I called out 'Mr Ridley' who replied (in a slightly worried tone) ... 'Who's that'. We were soon shaking hands before chatting and he introduced me to his two mates, Tom Hill and Dave Thompson. Mike said he saw us approaching and thought it was the police, ha!

The Milky Way was prominent, rising behind the aeroplane in an ideal position. Within a few minutes its position had changed quite a lot, so I quickly got to work and started photographing it before it was out of shot altogether. My choice of weapon was the Sony a7s, coupled with a Canon 16-35L f2.8 lens, which was more than capable. At around 1am the International Space Station flew over, but I wasn't shooting continuously so I failed to pull in my first ever shot of it. I managed to grab a 5 second exposure before it vanished. Another job done and ticked off nicely. I was only after one good shot and I got it. Amazing foreground and another enjoyable night out under the stars.

Cheers, Ash

Derwentwater By Night - April 2017

Hello again,

As you can see, I'm still alive and kicking, despite my 4 month absence from my blog page. Lots to catch up on, with new images and stories to accompany them, as well as an insight to what lays ahead with all things photography.

Todays blog entry takes me back to Saturday April 22nd, going into the 23rd, 2017. An all-nighter on the shores of Derwentwater and after midnight it would be my birthday, so I was hoping for a productive night with the camera. My brother Chris made the journey with me, across the A66, arriving at approximately 9pm. Earlier in the day I received an aurora alert on my mobile phone, but the north-east was clouded out, so we made the journey west, where clear skies were predicted. I remembered previous Aurora shows, notably on St. Patrick's Day and Mother's Day, so the omen's were looking good for tonight - St. George's Day! We decided that Lodore Jetty, on the edge of Derwentwater, was where we would set up for the night, looking north across the water towards the Skiddaw range. We had the place to ourselves, which was ideal - no-one else shining torches or getting in the way. That'll do nicely.

It was still quite cloudy when I set camera one up, although what was left of the clouds appeared to be moving east, leaving clear skies ahead. Within minutes a purple haze could be seen in the distance, towards Skiddaw and Lake Bassenthwaite. Then purple spikes appeared. Some nice structure, albeit very brief. They moved from left to right, disappearing behind Skiddaw. I was running a time lapse sequence, so I was rather chuffed to have caught the movement on camera. It was a great start to the night. As camera one pulled in the shots I set camera two away, pulling in continuous shots, which I would use for a star trail. Derwentwater was so still and there was no breeze at all. This was an idyllic spot, even at night, with only owls for company. 

I was shortly after midnight by this time and we were both getting hungry. I left Chris at Lodore and headed into Keswick in search of takeaway food. I parked up and headed across the road to a pizza shop, but the guy inside said he was closing for the night, which was great. Starving and craving a kebab when the bloke waves his hand and shakes his head. Cheers mate, I get the message. I had a quick drive around but nowhere else was open, so I headed back to Lodore empty handed. I'm driving along the lakeside, it's obviously pitch black at half past midnight. I've seen it all now - a young girl, probably late teens, walking along the road with headphones in and a small torch in her hand. I was amazed. I mean WTF. She was nowhere near houses or any real safe haven. Instinct told me to check that she was ok, so I slowed down and her if everything was ok. She looked across, said 'Yeah' in a very confident tone, then looked away and continued walking in pitch dark. I said 'Ok then' and drove on. Very odd!

Got back to Lodore Jetty and grabbed what was left of my goody bag - two bags of crisps and a few biscuits. Hardly a kebab, but what can ya do, eh. We spent three more hours waiting for another glimpse of the aurora, but we'd seen the best of it by this point. Before heading home I ran off a quick panoramic sequence of shots, 5 in total, panning from left to right above Lodore Jetty, where the milky way was ideally placed and arching across the night sky. It looked amazing. A fox screeched on the fells, echoing across the lake. This night photography is so addictive, with nature adding those final little touching, as well as Mother Nature chipping in with some aurora too. It certainly was a birthday to remember and a very productive one at that.

Cheers, Ash (one year older) 

Northern Lights - KP8 Predicted !!!

18 months ago, whilst on holiday at the Isle Of Wight, I decided to try and photograph the Milky Way. When I say try, it’s because I hadn’t previously attempted this type of photography, known as Astro, so my first objective was to locate the Milky Way and then set about capturing it with my camera. Until this point I had never seen the Milky Way – I had only seen very recent photographs of it during a brief research earlier in the afternoon.  At the time, during the Summer of 2014, the Milky Way stretched across the night sky from South to North, so I decided on a location to head to and set about the task of photographing it. The night in question will always be a one to remember, especially when I first saw the Milky Way for the very first time, in pitch black conditions, which was ideal as it stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. Photographing it was a lot easier than I had imagined. Infact, the hardest part of the whole experience was keeping my nerve, as the location was out in the sticks and under a blanket of pitch darkness, but I got the shot I wanted and that was very satisfying. And that was my introduction to Astro Photography, the night it all started for me and which continues to this day.

Astro Photography has lots of strings to its bow and it can be quite addictive, especially Aurora chasing, which I’ve been doing for a year, since my first sighting on 29 December, 2014. This brings me nicely on to today’s blog entry – another Aurora chase on the Northumberland Coast, almost a year to the day when I first saw the Northern Lights with my own eyes. In the hours prior to our road trip north on the A1(m), my mobile phone received lots of Aurora alerts through an app I have installed on it. A CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) had fallen from the sun two days before and was earth bound, which in turn causes the natural phenomena known as Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights). The strength of the magnetic storm is measured in KP units and a reading of between 4 and 5 is usually the least you need to be able to view the lights from the North-East coast of England. Other factors need to come into play too, such as BZ, a reading which is created by waves and other disturbances in the solar wind. The further south the BZ reading is, the better chance of a display. Today the Aurora forecast was KP8 and the BZ was as far south on the dial as it could be. I’d never seen a forecast as strong as this so I wasn’t gonna miss an opportunity to get involved.

We arrived at Craster at 6pm and headed across the pastures to Dunstanburgh Castle, an ideal location looking North, in the direction of the Aurora. Clear skies had been predicted on the Met Office app, but by the time we reached the castle a huge cloud bank was heading our way. Not in the plan at all. A green glow could be seen in front of us and it was quite high in the sky – much higher than I’d seen before. It was very windy upon the crag where Lilburn Tower is perched and the winds got worse as the night wore on. A steep drop to my left wasn’t an ideal place to set up shop, but the vantage point was the best I could find considering a few other photographers were in place alongside us at this point. Over the next four hours we waited for the clouds to disperse, which they did to some extent, but as they headed north it was the last place we wanted to see them. Any colour that was on display was clouded out and before long we were closed down altogether. The plan was falling apart and although those mad KP alerts kept on coming through, the clouds made sure we had little or no chance of seeing the display we had earlier expected. Home time.

After the 30 minute walk back to the car, feeling somewhat deflated, I reflected on the one decent shot I managed to pull in (see above). Not a great display be any means, but at least I got something for my efforts. The night wasn’t a complete cloud-out however. We decided to stop off at St. Mary’s Lighthouse, Whitley Bay, on the off chance that the Aurora may still be firing closer to home. It was around midnight when we arrived and a green glow could be seen behind the Lighthouse. The tide was incoming and the late night display had brought plenty of photographers to this location, eager to catch a few shots of the display. A Lunar Rainbow could be seen next to the Lighthouse, which a first for me, so I quickly grabbed the opportunity to photograph it before it faded, which it did in a matter of seconds. We spent a couple of hours at St. Mary’s, hoping to see an upturn in fortunes, but the Aurora never really got out of second gear the whole time we were there. Again, I grabbed what shots I could before calling it a day, or night in this case.

The night had so much expectation riding on it, but looking back now it was a big disappointment. Maybe I expected too much, but then again… when a KP8 forecast comes through, along with a weather forecast of clear skies to the North…well, you can’t help but get drawn in by it all. Experience tells me that most Aurora chases often turn out to be a waste of time and effort. The best ones I’ve been involved in have been very much unexpected, so you learn to simply go with the flow, cross your fingers and hope you hit lucky. You win some and you lose some, it’s all part and parcel of the game. I suppose that’s what half the attraction is. I wouldn’t change it if I could. The expected or unexpected? It is what is. I’ll keep on chasing (wink).

Until the next one…

Ash  

Hadrian's Wall - A First

Welcome back to my Blog page!
On Easter Weekend I made my first ever visit to Hadrian's Wall, accompanied by friend and rookie photographer, Billy Short. It's hard to believe I hadn't walked the wall at some point, with or without a camera, so my maiden visit was well and truly overdue. Billy knew the place quite well, keeping me informed of what lay along the Hadrian's Wall Path, which stretches approximately 80 miles from Wallsend to the Solway Firth. Construction of this defensive fortification in Roman Britain begun in AD 122, during the rule of Emperor Hadrian. Steeped in history, Hadrian's Wall was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Although Hadrian's biographer wrote "Hadrian was the first to build a wall 80 miles long to separate the Romans from the barbarians", reasons for the construction of the wall vary, and no recording of any exact explanation survives. However, a number of theories have been presented by historians, primarily centring around an expression of Roman power and Hadrian's policy of defence before expansion.

It was now my turn to tread where Romans once did, so off we went, into the sticks for some photography and a taste of historical interest. We headed towards Once Brewed, just off the main gateway to the wall, the A69. It was an hours drive from Houghton le Spring, which wasn't bad at all, especially when the roads were quite busy on Easter Weekend. To give you an idea of exactly where we were heading in relation to the length of Hadrian's Wall, Once Brewed lies approximately 45 miles from Wallsend, the obvious 'End' of the 'Wall', so near the half way marker. From the car park we headed across the pasture and beyond the surrounding trees, where we caught our first view of the wall. The sun was very low and it threw a warm glow onto the crag that led the eye along the stretch of wall towards Steel Rigg. It was a sight and a half. We walked own the dip and onto the path itself, before a very steep climb up the crag via a staircase of ancient stones, strategically placed to help old timers like myself, he he. There was barely a breeze. The sun dropped behind the hill to our left as we made our way along towards Sycamore Gap, a location that appeared in the film 'Robin Hood, Prince Of Thieves'. The temperature took a noticeable dip, and this would only worsen as the evening progressed, but we were prepared for the task ahead. That task - to photograph the night sky with a series of long exposures, in the hope of crafting an eye opening star trail image. We went equipped with a powerful torch, thinking out loud with light painting in mind. This is an area that's relatively new to me, as I've only tried this once in before at Penshaw Monument. Billy hadn't done any at all, so we were looking forward to giving it a decent shot, despite our inexperience.

Thirty minutes into the walk and we reached our stop. Sycamore Gap looked the part alright, as seen on many photographs by many different photographers. Now it was our turn. We set up our camera's and done the prep work, dialling in the ideal settings for star trails, then waited for the light to drop, which it inevitably did, and by 9pm it was All Systems Gogo. You could almost hear a pin drop. This was solitude at its very best, and this photogenic location topped it off perfectly. We were underway with the long exposures, rattling them off continuously for what was expected to last around 90 minutes, weather permitting. The camera's were doing all the graft by this time and all we had to do was brave the cold as we headed towards the last couple hours of the day. Thousands of stars shone above in the dark night sky, with the moon an absentee as the exposures rolled in. Ideal - no light pollution whatsoever, until cloud cover threatened to spoil the party as it headed our way around 10pm. Suddenly the stars had disappeared, or at least most of them, making our task that much harder, but we soldiered on (no pun intended). By 10.15pm our camera's had recorded around 140 exposures, so the decision was made to call it a day, or in this case, a night. The clouds had gate crashed the show. We packed up and made our way back across the pasture towards the car park in the distance. It was pitch black and boggy underfoot, but the powerful torch saved the day and we able to navigate ourselves away from any hazards.

It was nigh on 11pm when we reached the car park and we didn't pass a single person en route, which wasn't a big surprise - only those who are 'Wired up wrong' do this type of thing, he he. And now for a brief insight into my photographs, shown here, from top to bottom... 

1. A viewpoint along Hadrian's Wall, towards Steel Rigg, as the sun was about to set behind us.

2. Sycamore Gap at dusk. That's me walking up the bank, remotely firing the camera shutter. For a brief time there was a stand off between myself and a rather aggressive Ram. Didn't know they existed, until now!

3. Star Trails. This was what we turned out for and this is what we got. Couldn't have been more satisfied with the results. My second attempt at this type of night time photography. 138 exposures and almost 70 minutes of work, but well worth braving the cold for...

4. Static Stars. Before leaving Sycamore Gap we used a torch to add an extra element to our final shots. A nice warm glow in the night sky made for a lovely shot...Beam me up!

5. Finally, another static stars effort, with a backlit tree as the focal point. Billy knows the score with torches and light painting, although he assured me this was his first attempt!

And that's it for now. A memorable visit to a place that is now on the tick list for more photography. Plenty more points of interest along Hadrian's Wall, just waiting to be picked off - It's a simple case of getting out there to explore what is on offer. With the Summer almost upon us, what better opportunity to get across there and get amongst it. My Canon 5D3 bagged some excellent shots on its very first 'Night Shoot' so I'm quite excited at the prospect of more low-light shots in the very near future. Once I put the camera through its paces (Correction - when the camera puts ME through its paces), I'll bring you another blog entry with a full teardown review. Just need to get out to test it with my other lenses this weekend. Gonna do some nature photography with my big reach 100-400mm lens. I'm thinking Washington Wetlands Centre, so keep an eye out at www.ashleycorr.com for more updates. Until then, thanks for dropping by...

Ash