The blue hour

The time just before sunrise and just after sunset is known to photographers as 'the blue hour'. It rarely lasts an hour but it's the time when the sky goes dark blue and yet the shadows retain a little detail. Everything looks a little ghostly. It's best to use a tripod to get a good quality photo but my phone did a creditable job in capturing it as I walked home from the park one evening.

Another evening stroll

I sometimes take a walk down to the park in the evening, if it's been a warm day. There are fewer people about and I am always hopeful of catching a good sunset. There were skeins of pink clouds on this occasion but sunset wasn't really a spectacular affair. We're too low down in the valley, I think, to see the best sky shows.

Reflections in the river give double the fun. Reflections in windows, in this case the windows of the New Mill, are also fun to notice.

Serendipity

The deepening blue sky reflected in the canal, and a wash of late evening sunlight on the honeyed stone of the New Mill made an attractive scene of this familiar view. The passing cyclist had kindly chosen a top that toned in with the green walkway connecting the mills. Serendipitous.

The end of the day

It's not often that I catch a sunset around here. I can't see them developing from my house as there are too many buildings in the way. When I do go out at twilight, I rarely catch much colour. I have never managed to work out what the conditions are that are most likely to produce the lovely tints.

Saltaire's church can look very attractive in the right circumstances, silhouetted against the western sky as the sun drops low behind it. On another evening at a similar time, everything looked much more blue. The photo below is looking along Albert Terrace, beside the railway station.

Evening light

I've found there are fewer people about in the village and in Roberts Park in the early evening so sometimes I go out after dinner for a short walk as the sun is going down. (It's more restful when you don't have to worry about 'keeping a social distance' and dodging people.) The attractive golden light in that last hour before sunset often highlights slightly different views too.

The Callanish Stones

Harris, day five

The Callanish Stones are perhaps the most famous visitor attraction on Lewis. It's a complicated site, consisting of three separate stone circles and some avenues of stones, believed to date back to between 2900 and 2600 BC, making them about the same age as Stonehenge. They are of a simpler construction, consisting of standing stones without any lintels.

It is believed to have been used as a Bronze Age ritual site and a little later a burial chamber was added, which was used for many centuries. The whole site fell out of use around 1000 BC and was then used for agriculture, being completely abandoned in around 800 BC and eventually buried under peat. It was cleared of peat in the late 1800s and taken into protective care.

The Gneiss markings make each stone very attractive and the whole site is quite awesome.

We were privileged to enjoy the sunset at the main stone circle, a powerful and beautiful experience, despite a little drizzle. Our final sunset of a memorable trip - most poignant...

Pastel tones

Harris, day four
We spent late afternoon on day four on Scarista beach, a long crescent of pale sand in the shadow of Ceapabhal. The beach faces north and the sunset unfolded gradually in a series of pastel hues. I was busy again with my ND filter to smooth the water. The top photo is without it and the one below is using it to give a 1.5 sec exposure. Sometimes I prefer one and sometimes the other!

As the light faded the hills of Taransay across the Sound were tinted pink:

The clouds, lit by the setting sun, were a gentle fire of blues, greys, corals and pinks:

Beach panoramas

Harris, day three
I discovered the panorama feature on my camera! The beautiful beach in the first shot is Tràigh Iar (where we went on our first afternoon). After we'd mooched about photographing Luskentyre beach (middle photo), we drove right round the estuary to the other side (third photo), past Seilebost where the tide had come in, and stopped for coffee at a brand new community enterprise centre, Talla na Mara, from where the top photo was taken. The centre is an exciting concept, designed to provide facilities for local residents, visitors and businesses. There is a restaurant, exhibition space, creative arts workshops and office space.

On the same site there were six new residential buildings, which appeared to have charging points for electric vehicles. I was a little surprised at that but perhaps I shouldn't be. Electricity is probably easier to access than vehicle fuel on Harris and the distances you'd need to drive are not huge on a small island. A lot of the older properties on Harris are functional, pebble-dashed bungalows, as well as many empty, derelict crofts. From what I can gather, the population plummeted by 50% since the 1950s and by 2007 35% of properties were holiday homes. It seems that there has been some fresh thinking and investment in the last ten years, resulting in an increase of 20% in the population of West Harris, and some very modern and innovative residential building projects. (See HERE for some examples, from the Skye-based design team that built the community centre).

And then there was another sunset, enjoyed from the dunes overlooking Seilebost:

The sunset show, day two

Harris, day two
Tràigh na Cleabhaigh produced the most wonderful, dramatic twilight show. Here it could be enjoyed looking both west as the sun sank over the sea and east to the rosy-hued clouds. Slow shutter speeds seemed to bring out the colours rather beautifully.

First Harris sunset

Harris, day one
We stayed on the beach at Tràigh Iar until after sunset, enjoying how the light and colours changed. It was just magical, and photos can only hint at the beauty. It was a delicate, cloudy sunset, subtle in its majesty.

Crepusculars before sunset

Being so high in an otherwise fairly flat area, Almscliffe Crag is a good spot from which to enjoy a sunrise or sunset. The day I was there, a heavy bank of cloud drifted in to obscure the sun. It produced some dramatic crepuscular rays, though the sunset itself was largely hidden and rather underwhelming as a result. Pink skies are pretty though, aren't they?

City dusk

In Leeds it proved hard to get a good composition at sunset. My best effort was a railway gantry, softened by a rogue buddleia bush along the track. I liked the juxtaposition of hard lines and the more delicate tracery of the branches.

One of the many cranes on the skyline also provided a focal point. Leeds is a big, metropolitan city and is still growing, with lots of new offices and urban residential properties being built,

I quite liked the hard edges of this block of apartments against the soft clouds too. It was not, anyway, a very spectacular sunset in the end, though the colours were pretty.

Lee Abbey sunset

So, that was my holiday journal... I took so many photos! I hope I haven't been boring about it. I wanted my own record of a very enjoyable 'grand tour' of the south west of England  - and anyway, I haven't been taking many pictures at home recently.

Finally, just because I can't not show this - here is another sunset shot, taken during the time I was at Lee Abbey, Devon. The sun drops down over Lee Bay into the sea and each night it looks different, depending on the cloud cover. Irresistible to watch - and to photograph. It was like having your very own light show, night after night. As the sun neared the sea, it seemed to change shape from a sphere to an oval. Absolutely compelling. It seemed as if there should be a symphony playing but instead all was quiet. Even the people watching stopped talking and simply enjoyed one of the masterpieces of God's creation. Such peace.

"If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of anyone, 

I shall feel that I have worked with God."

G K Chesterton

Devon: A gentle sunset

Sunsets at Lee Abbey are often stunning, as the sun sets right over Lee Bay. Most nights there'd be lots of people out on the beach, sitting on benches or leaning on the fence on the lane, just watching the show as the sun sank, the sky and sea turning from pretty shades of pink and blue to an ever-deepening gold and red. It lasted each night for about three-quarters of an hour of absolute magic, so peaceful and quiet.

Evening falls...

Evening falls and Salts Mill is briefly illuminated by the setting sun, its windows silvery and the brickwork glowing amber. The line of parked cars on Caroline Street is thinning out, as weary commuters alight from their trains and make their way home through the chill, to warm firesides and dinner. Just a fleeting moment caught on camera... Within seconds, the warm glow had ebbed away as the sun was swallowed up in a cloud.

Snowy sunset

I drove back from my daughter's at dusk the other day. There was a light covering of snow over the very tops of the moors, illuminated by a pleasingly colourful sunset. I'd no tripod with me, so I tried balancing the camera on the car but, apart from the middle of the roof where I can't reach, it doesn't have a flat surface anywhere! It was worth stopping to watch the show, anyway. What a glorious world we inhabit. We've more snow forecast for this week, though the weather doesn't always live up to the predictions.

Glory of a different kind in the afternoon.... I took my grandchildren to play with Lego, at a 'Bricks for Kidz' event: a community centre hall with masses of boxes of Lego in all colours and shapes, and lots of busy children. My oldest granddaughter loved it and built some colourful houses and boxes. You could see her little mind working out patterns and how to make the structure stable. The little one spent a long time simply and happily transferring handfuls of bricks from one container to another! There were also lots of stalls where you could buy Lego and tables where adults were showing off their creations - from working Lego train sets, through fantasy scenes from Dr Who and other films and games, to a huge and detailed model of the Houses of Parliament that must have taken months to build. My favourite was a seaside scene complete with beach and sea, with lots of little people swimming, surfing and lying on sunloungers. Why didn't they have things like that when I was a mum? It used to be hard to fill winter weekends in those days!

Sunset at Formby

'The biggest cliché in photography is sunrise or sunset.' Catherine Opie

Never mind, I think I'm allowed a cliché now and again. We took an evening walk on the beach near Formby when I was on my Liverpool trip a while back. The sunset was not spectacular but the sky was pleasing, nonetheless, and my iPhone did a creditable job of capturing it.

I was going to post something else today but in the wake of a lot of bad news both nationally and further afield, and from a couple of my friends too, I decided a brief pause to reflect on a peaceful scene might be the more appropriate thing for today. My thoughts and prayers are with the friends I know personally and also all those I don't know, who have lost or are anxious about loved ones or who are suffering in body, mind or spirit.

A new perspective

Back home... It's rare that I find a genuinely new perspective to photograph in Saltaire these days but I had one such 'aha' moment the other evening. I went for a brief, quick walk just as the sun was setting (keen to boost my mileage for the day... that's what having a Fitbit does for you!) I went down into the village and round Roberts Park, always a pleasant amble. I've crossed the footbridge a million times before, in all weathers, and never really noticed before that at a certain point you can see trees mirrored in the top of the weir. (I'm usually more aware of the oft-photographed reflections of the New Mill - see here). Just at that moment, the sunset sky was prettily suffusing the water with a pink tinge. I really liked the almost abstract juxtaposition of the grey, rushing water on one side of the drop and the calm, reflected sunset trees on the other.

'Stop!'

Iceland holiday - Another of those 'Stop!' moments. What photographer could resist a reflection of a snow-capped mountain in the golden hour as the sun was going down? Again, I'm not exactly sure where this was, except that it was on the 54 road north of Borgarnes.

The calm of the evening

Wales -  As I said yesterday, our accommodation overlooked a busy spot with lots to watch but the real beauty came in the evening, at least on those nights when it was sunny and still. The sun set behind the apartment and the long golden rays of light lit the moored boats beautifully.

There was only one night when the sunset sky showed any colour but it was pretty and delicate, even though the tide was out and the reflections thereby somewhat limited.