Interesting light?

 Looking through some shots from the UK I came across these six I thought I'd share with you today.  The thing that I thought when I looked at them was how the light intrigued me when I took the shot.

First image was taken at Manchester International Airport and I was quite taken by the clouds into which the 'planes were flying.  It was quite funny really.  All other cameras were pointing the other way, trying to get impressive images of the aircraft.  I liked the clouds and any type of aircraft somewhere in the image was fine by me!

Second shot was taken whilst walking in a park in Westhoughton, Bolton.  The light was lovely, especially the way it illuminated the leaves.  There seemed to be a glow and hopefully the image gives you an idea of just how lovely it was that evening.

The last four shots were taken at Lyme Park.  The first of these shows The Cage up top right of the image and the famous home in the bottom left.  There's a shot of the front of the stately home in more detail in a previous post here.  the back of the home (or is it the front?) is in the penultimate shot in this post.  Each of these shots has quite high levels of contrast, hence the title to the post.  Let me know what you think.

England!

There's something rather special about England.  Perhaps it's where I was born?  Perhaps it's the history  and the beautiful old buildings?  Perhaps its the quaintness of the country lanes, or then again the beauty of the countryside?  Then again, perhaps it's all these things and more.

After Vancouver we were keen to see England again, but can't say that our first impressions were good.  What a depressing welcome to the country.  Very grey and bleak as you're transported by bus, via the bowels of Heathrow Airport to passport control.  So many greys and dull colours; a very marked contrast to the bright, airy and colourful airports at Auckland and Vancouver.  Mind you, the staff made up for the depressing visuals of Heathrow with their warm welcome to England.

We flew from London to Manchester and again were intrigued by how "empty" and green the country looks from the air.  While travelling by car you often have the sensation the country is packed with buildings, roads and people with no "spare" space.  In fact, depending on the time of day, travelling by car can be a real challenge as can finding somewhere to park your vehicle at journey's end.

Public transport was great.  The buses, trains and trams were both regular, reliable and reasonably priced ... a big contrast to what we're used to back here in New Zealand!

Over the next few days and weeks I'll add a few more posts from our trip to the UK.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and hopefully you'll enjoy looking at the images as we did taking them :-)

In this post from top to bottom you can see Lyme Park, Wharfedale and Bolton Abbey.