Bradford On Avon

Finally...

A day out in the sunshine - and away from Salisbury. It's been months, literally...

Situated a few miles east of Bath, I got to Bradford on Avon by train at 7.20, nearly an hour before sunrise. As it was, the low winter sun didn't actually get over the surrounding hills until 9. Quite a lot of waiting, in the cold. By the time I left BOA at 1 p.m., had several hundred shots in the bag and the polarised blue skies and warm tones on the local building stone looked quite lovely.

Did get to the Kennett & Avon Canal but that lies underneath a sharp embankment, with tall trees and even at midday, the sun was not hitting the canal or the rather muddy towpath either and so I turned back from that one, specially as it's about a mile out of the town centre.

This shot typifies BOA's heritage, a huge mill, hence the town's name. Further details hereYes, they're retirement flats now (had to clone out an aerial) and derelict ones that I've seen from the train before have now been demolished and are now more housing and shopping developments, but in progress...being on foot it was a good opportunity to scout this area out and I took quite a few snaps (yes, even I do take fairly rubbish point and shoot shots, too) just as a record.

Not many would think of using a polarising filter on a pre-dawn shot, handheld, since it eats at least a couple of stops of light. Shot from a pedestrian bridge through railings from kneeling height, I was still looking down on it and so had to run it through Photoshop lens distortion filters and then Perspectively correct it, then enhanced the shadows. And a few other bits and pieces. But the polariser added to the colour contrast and saturation to those lovely blues, in the sky and water. By the time of sun-up, it was so light that almost all the colour contrast had gone, though I did return to this spot a number of times.

And, yes, it looks good in black & white, too...