It has been a long time since I have been able to shoot in foggy/misty conditions, so I really enjoyed making the most of them on our wander around the geotrail in Frosterely. Their are several walks in the area, the route we chose was the Frosterley Marble Walk, taken from the ‘This Is Durham’ website here. There are three variations, we chose option two.

It suggests to park at the station in the town, but we parked around the corner in the public car park on front street. This location is roughly ///users.discouraged.jousting on what3words.

In the above left image there was some amazing light off in the distance, I hoped this focal length would still pick it up as I preferred the buildings in the foreground to just zooming in to a shot with nothing but light. Sadly the light didn’t translate, but I still like the scene as a whole. This is especially so with everything feeling a little muted apart from the pop of red from the post box.

With the image above on the right, I literally just liked the old shed with patina. I was probably a week or two late for getting the colour from the tree to the side of it as it had lost most of it’s leaves…. but patina is always good!

As you cross the bridge from the station there are a pair of old Methodist Churches, you turn past them and head along a lane which take you passed some barns and on towards some of old railway abutments. Before you get there however, this farmhouse is sat on a hill in the field to the right, nicely framed by the trees and wall. Given my love of rural buildings it would have been almost rude to not stop and take a picture.

I’m not normally one for taking photos of caravans. I’ve been known to walk away from a good composition of a farmhouse for example because I’ve realised there is a caravan in the shot. I don’t have anything against those who enjoy caravaning, it’s just I generally don’t find them that aesthetically pleasing, which is odd given that many aren’t that far removed from sheds… I quite like this little trio however. I don’t know if its the autumnal colour, or the fact the haze in the air is making them feel a bit filmic, but I don’t dislike these image even though they have caravans in them…

The instructions state that as you pass the disused quarry to keep heading straight, but we couldn’t help poking our heads inside briefly to see if there were any shots. There was an old building sat in the centre, but the shots of that were better from further around the walk. The quarry did have a few interesting trees that could be shot in silhouette against the sky, but my favourite image was the one above.

A sheep reared its head over the edge of the opposite side to where we were stood. I quickly changed to my tele. I had original just zoomed into the sheep, as per my gallery at the bottom of the page, however the shot that stood out was once I framed it using the branches of a tree as in the above image. I’m left feeling like the sheep is stood proud, as if it’s a lion.

As you pass the disused quarry, you turn and head up a short incline that separates the disused quarry from a working one beside it. As you climb you can look down and see inside the quarry and to the old abandoned industrial building which I referenced above. For me I preferred the compositions from here, as it was a little bit to tight against the walls from inside, even with my 16mm.

With the above left image, it was the pylons that had caught my eye. I liked them looming over the cliff, and how the lines of the cliffs led down to pond below. As with a previous image this week, it may not have been quite the right focal length for my vision of the shot, but as with the ‘private’ gate on the other shot, I couldn’t get closer due to the quarry edge, and my tele was too long.

I continued to keep my eye on the pylons though we walked around, and ended up getting the above right shot on my tele. These can be just about seen on the top left on the right image. I like the more minimalist feel in comparison to the left, especially when combined with the compression feeling like it’s emphasised the haze in the air. I could see an argument to taking out the wires from the closer pylons, but given the subject, I don’t feel they detract.

I haven’t included any images from the next section of the hike in the main body of the blog. There were some decent agricultural buildings, but I was struggling for composition as there was probably the biggest pile of manure I’ve ever seen up close in amongst them. But when you hit the road, you turn left and head along the river towards Harehope Quarry, pictured below.

I don’t know if it’s the quarry walls providing shelter, or something along those lines, but there was still a LOT of colour on this section of the hike. I could probably have done full edits on several images from the section which passed along the edge of this quarry. We thought we spent more of the route around this quarry, but we only passed it briefly. It’s definitely somewhere to remember for exploring next year in the autumn for colour (and little cascading waterfalls that looked like a good photo from the quarry floor).

I think this image is pretty self explanatory. I see sheep, I press the shutter.

The last two shots above are taken as you cross back over the river to head into Frosterley to return to the start of the circular route. The left is a building which stood out as we approached the bridge from the other side of the river. I’m not sure there would be a shot here in summer, but with the sparse and colourful vegetation at this time of year it created a nice reflection in the water. I took a few variations, ultimately I think I’ve gone for one that I liked the building in more than the reflection. This is simply because to get a better reflection I would have probably needed my tripod.

The right was simply looking back and seeing how soft the light was getting as it shone through the trees. Getting light like this more often is one of the reasons I prefer winter for shooting than autumn.

There is a further selection of images below in a gallery format from our wander along this circular geo-trail hiking route.

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

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