Elsdon & the Todholes
This short walk has almost everything I look for in a photography walk. I love photographing quaint rural buildings, and this walk had plenty, among other things too. It is a relatively short circular route, that I enjoyed a casual stroll around, using just my xf35mm. All the photos below are with this lens, and whilst there are a couple which may have benefit from a slightly longer focal length, this is probably my favourite lens from my Fuji system so I sometimes struggle with trying to decide to remove it from the camera body.
The walk starts at the Elsdon Village Hall Car Park, on What3Words this is the square: ///disgraced.insurers.pizzas
Instead of walking towards the village as you would with the Elsdon Burn walk, this route takes you through a gate in the opposite direction, where we were almost immediately greeted with a beautiful classic car.
Classic car at Elson in Northumberland National Park.
From here you follow the road a short while. Anyone who has followed me on my landscape instagram will know I love to take photos of sheep. and the tree to the rear of the above picture made for a nice framing element for a portrait of the sheep near to it.
A sheep in Northumberland National Park
A farmhouse surrounded by trees at Elsdon.
I am not just a sucker for a picture of sheep, any farm animal and I am pretty much straight there with my Fuji in hand. These cows were chilling under a tree. They are very different to the cows from my last entry (link at the end of this article if you haven’t checked that one out yet)
Cows chilling under a tree in Northumberland National Park.
I have said to my wife on many an occasion that when I retire (I’m only 34 so I’m planning way ahead) I can see myself spending my days wandering through rural landscapes capturing some of the buildings. I love a farmhouse, but I also have a thing about old barns and sheep sheds etc. Even if they are starting to weather and show their age… Especially if they are starting to weather and show their age. I like the textures, and the patina. I like the stories buildings like those must come with.
Farmhouse in Northumberland National Park.
Barn near to the above Farmhouse.
One thing that I don’t often take is a grand vista. I normally lean more towards more intimate scenes. Even with my landscape photography, I will rarely refer to it as that, normally leaning towards ‘scenic’ photographer or something along those lines when discussing it in person. Though I do tend to refer to it as landscape online for ease of explaining.
Looking down from the Todholes.
The above image was taken as we started to head up towards the Todholes farmsteads. You probably cant tell from this picture, but the grass in the meadow was rather long. It often came above my knees in parts of the field, and my little ones had great fun trying to run through it, and falling over, disappearing out of sight.
Walking through the long grass to the Todholes
From the West Todhole you are at probably just over the halfway mark for the walking route by distance, but as it is mainly downhill from that point back to Elsdon most of the walk by time is probably behind you.
West Todholes
As you head down the hill back towards Elsdon there are still photo opportunities. As mentioned above I like an old building with a bit of character, and just before you hit the village again, surrounded by sheep was this little shed, with a small footbridge nearby acting as a little bit of a leading line to carry your eyes to the shed.
Elsdon, Northumberland National Park
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 Elsdon and the Todholes will be below.
Gallery below for remaining images.
