Bees, Buzzing, Belsay and Slides.

In the new year I made a deal with my children that I would only bring my camera on our trips once per weekend. This would hopefully have them feel more excited to spend time with their daddy if I was running around with them (cardio ability allowing), rather than me getting engrossed in taking photos. Another part of the deal was a ban on talking about Pokemon and Minecraft for one day per weekend, which I have to admit I was excited for too…

Since making that deal we have actually been to Belsay a couple of times, but this trip was the first of the year where I had my camera with me. Not all of our trips are walks and hikes, sometimes a good old English Heritage or National Trust site can make for a great day trip.

Presently the hall at Belsay is surrounded by scaffolding. It has been for several weeks now, so I went knowing that I probably wasn’t going to get my best photographs of the hall on this trip. What English Heritage have done however, which does alleviate this somewhat, is to build a slide from the scaffolding that visitors can have a go on.

A bee collecting pollen, Beslay Hall surrounded in scaffolding to the rear

The picture above was taken on my 16mm lens, which required getting really close to that bee. The xf16mm is a great pseudo-macro lens for close focusing like this. I went through a phase of doing lots of flower photography with this lens. Sometimes in the middle of summer when the sun is harsh and not as good for the photos I take on hikes, I will switch back to taking close up flowers again.

The slide at Belsay Hall and Gardens coming from the scaffolding

As a site, Belsay has a Hall and Castle, separated by a stretch of beautifully curated gardens that make an almost circular route between the two. As with the photo of the bee, the 16mm excels at taking detailed photos of the blooms, but is also good for some of the design features in the gardens, such as the bridges over the paths, and the large gates before the castle, as seen in the gallery below.

I have taken many a photo of the castle, in all seasons and from as many angles as I can think of whilst staying within the bounds of what visitor access will allow. This photo is from this visit, but my favourite time of year for this shot is from very late autumn through to the middle of winter. I’ve taken this photo when the sunset has been early enough to allow a golden sky during normal opening hours, with the castle catching a soft golden glow as the sun dipped below the trees behind me. As the castle is so dominant in frame, it doesn’t matter that some of the deciduous trees to the background look bare.

You can go inside the castle, and even up to the roof to get views of the surrounding Northumberland countryside. Watch your step though. On this visit I managed to take a tumble, unfortunately landing camera first. Luckily however the Fuji’s are remarkably well made, and as it is I have it in a leather half case. My knee (which I didn’t feel like I hit too hard at the time) is still looking more battered and bruised than the camera a week later.

Walking back from the Castle, there are a couple of photos I tend to always leans towards taking. One is a folly which I believe is part of the estate, but not with visitor access. I think it may be a church for the estate. And another, is as you enter the quarry garden from the Castle side.

With the below scene entering the Quarry Gardens, in autumn you get some fantastic colours. Golden, orange and red hues. I have posted this to my landscape account with my family carrying a blue umbrella in the past, which clashes against the autumn colours and I just love it. As this is from July, and summer, I have taken a different approach. I have exposed for the open area to the rear of the frame, pushing everything in under the canopy in the foreground of the frame into silhouette.

Heading into hall, there is often lush light coming in through many of the rather large windows. It is the kind of place I would love to do a portrait shoot for a corseted dress, as Corset Story used to in country houses pre-COVID. At the moment however this light is impacted by the scaffolding to outside of the property. There are still nice options, there is for instance a spot light on the stairs that makes for wonderful picture.

On this occasion however, I leant away from those styles of photos, and towards one that more effectively catches the present for the site, rather than a photo that could be repeated at any time. My children staring longingly at the slide outside whilst they are being made to look around the property.

If you would like to see more of my landscape work, moving forward most of the images will be here in blog format, but I will notify of new entries on my Instagram page for landscapes - @photog.righ

If you are interested in following my portrait and product work, links to my instagram and twitter for those accounts are just below at the bottom of this page. Alternatively sign up for email notifications directly below. Some more photos of this walk around Belsay Hall & Gardens will be below.