A Hill Without A View

While much of the UK was busy watching some blokes kick a ball around on Sunday evening, I went out for a walk on the moors. It was a dull grey evening, with a hint of stormy colour looming on the distant horizon above the Irish sea, but otherwise an unremarkable evening. Even the midges seemed to be taking a break, as was most of the moorland fauna for that matter. Even the ever present sheep had largely disappeared, although I was trudging through a lot of evidence that they weren't too far away, so for the most part I had the moors to myself as I made my way up Black Brook, eventually emerging onto Heapey Moor.

After the heady excitement of lugging the GFX kit and a tripod around Duxbury Woods the day before, I'd returned to the more manageable X-T50 kit for this walk, along with the 18/2, 23/1.4 and 56mm/1.2 Fuji primes in my bag. In some ways, I'd have preferred the Sigma 18-50/2.8 zoom for its convenience, but it really does seem to lack something when compared against my motley collection of prime lenses, so it tends to sit at home when I'm out on these walks.

All images taken handheld without filters (mainly because I don't have any to fit the diverse spread of filter threads on these lenses) and processed from single raw files in Capture One Pro 23.

Great Hill From Drinkwater's

The view looking up the path towards Great Hill from the East gate of the farm ruins.

At The Foot of Great Hill

The main public footpath up the nose of Great Hill runs through this fenced off area. I'm not sure why this part of the hill is fenced off, I suspect it's more for historic reasons that any modern practical ones. When I started to climb the hill, I noticed the view was getting fuzzier, as it turned out I'd arrived at the hill along with an incoming wave of clag.

Great Hill Sheep Summit Meeting (see what I did there?)

As I waded deeper into the fog, I found where almost all of the sheep had been hiding. For some reason, they'd abandoned the moors and congregated on the hill and boy did they not want to move. Normally sheep are very skittish and run away as you approach them, but these guys were totally standing their ground as I made my way past them. They'd clearly been there a while, as the path was booby trapped worse than the kind of ancient structure you might find Harrison Ford hanging around in (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Poo?).

Safety In Numbers

Something had definitely spooked them and they were mostly clustered in groups. I've recently heard a number of (old) reports of strange beasts on the moors, but to be fair, I've never seen or heard anything untoward up there, so I'm a bit dubious, but seeing the sheep acting like this did put me on edge a little bit.

360 Degrees Of Grey

The view from the summit. No visibility, no breeze and almost nowhere to sit as the sheep had left presents on 7 of the 8 seats in the summit shelter.

Evil Eyes In The Sky

As I made my way back down, a sinister pair of glowing red eyes appeared in the sky, or, you know, just some stormy red light breaking through the cloud cover.

It's Grim Up North

The moors cranking the bleakness up to 11 as I made my way back to Drinkwater's. This was around 9PM, with sunset about 30 minutes away, but the oppressive cloud cover made it feel much later.

Back At Drinkwater's

Looking across Heapey Moor towards the tree lined Nab in the distance. The well that gives Drinkwater's it's name is just below that rock wall you can just see the top of in the foreground.

The Murky Moors

When I reached Coppice Stile, I stopped to look back at where I'd just been. You can make out the bulky shape of Great Hill cloaked in clag on the horizon. This image is probably my favourite from this set and I think its the various imperfections that make it so. It's shot at f/1.2 which means nothing is crisply in focus, adding to the murkiness of the image and the colour balance is definitely skewed towards the blue end of the spectrum. I did correct the colour balance at one point, but the image lost some of its character, so I reverted it to the preset daylight value you see here.

Stragglers

As I was walking along the path down from Drinkwater's, this sheep and accompanying lamb were coming the other way towards me, presumably off to join their mates at the Great Hill summit, but having spotted me, they dived off the main path and onto the one I was going to follow back down to White Coppice. I eventually caught up with them on White Coppice when they'd met up with another group of disparate sheep that had decided to congregate here instead of on Great Hill.

Some Sort Of Sunset

Looking out from White Coppice just after sunset, there was no clear break in the clouds, just a hint of colour in the sky and a muddy, muted look to the colours below.

We appreciate the effort and stamina in order to produce this amazing series. Just fabulous.
My fave...

That view down towards Drinkwater's has to be my favourite among the familiar scenes you regularly post, and this version is no exception. Very moody. As is the murky moors shot.

Wonderful sunset, and just enough water blur to take it to the next level.

This is a really lovely idea. Do you leve the pictures up for the whole year.

I really like this shot, an archetypal mountain shot.

I am always attracted to this sort of landscape with infinite space.

Looks like a wonderful place to spend a holiday, if you get some good weather.

The human figures make this shot more interesting. Otherwise it would have been a pretty boring symmetrical shot.

I had some places from your past posts in mind, and Lydney was one of them. I wanted to catch the boat cemetery at Purton, but time ran out. My wife usually complains about climbing any hill, but she was star struck with May hill, and we made it to the clump of trees without any moaning. On our travells around it was a place we could make out from a lot of places.

Our visit to Gloucester Cathedral, was very brief, and it was pouring down with rain, so I did not see much of the outside. I missed the gargoyles. Did you sing from that sort of grandstand they have erected in the nave? I actually liked Hereford Cathedral more, but more about that next week.

Sheep are strange beasts. I one remember coming across a group of them standing guard over one of their number that had been attacked and dismembered by a wolf pack. It was pretty weird as that were baying loudly over the corpses of their late companion.

I am certain a walk on the murky moors was more satisfying than watching England's rather humiliating game with Spain.

I actually waited for humans for few minutes before pressing the button.

I have indeed sung from the temporary staging, including one time performing a jazz Mass, when we had to 'break step' like a marching army for fear of bringing the thing down! I've also done a wedding in the choir, and a few times standing on the floor in front of the organ where the staging you saw was. It's a fantastic place to sing, great acoustics.
The modern gargoyles are on the NW side, representing Gloucestershire's traditional activities;
A rugby player from Gloucester city
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A Freeminer from the Forest of Dean

A Jockey holding the Cheltenham Gold Cup

Here's my pick from the tour. A nice set!
The shot with the boats in Hammersmith is a classic UK seaside view.
Not surprised to see some church interiors in your set, all well done of course.
It's nice to visit England again. I'll be back there for just over a week in September :-)

Nice, subdued sunset colours. I find myself reminded of Antony Gormley's Another Place installation at Crosby Beach, which I should make an effort to visit some day.

Next time, I will try to see the outside too. I think my wife wants to go back to the area.

I like the sweep of the road in this one.

This is a stunning image. What fabulous view.

I'm envious of the mountains where you live, not that I'd be much good at climbing them these days, but it would be fantastic to walk in the valleys beneath them. You've captured them well here.

Have you posted this one before? It looks familiar. I like the autumnal colours.

This is the standout image in this set for me. The way those curved ceilings interact with the light from the windows is really special.

Here's my selection with the inviting gate leading to ..... those sheep!

Nicely lit sheep in the second one I selected

I didn't see the 2 red lines as "eyes" before you mentioned them, I just liked the shot, but yes, I suppose they could be eyes looking down at you ;-)

And sunsets are always pleasant to see and make for some good shots!

I'm not particularly a fan of ICM or double exposures in general, but this one works very well and has a nice feel to it, whatever you've done with it - I can't make my mind up if it's ICM or multiple exposure, or maybe even both?

Lovely colours in all of them.