I’ve neglected my home town of late photographically – familiarity breeds contempt and all that. But a couple of things came up in the last week that sent me rushing out with the camera gear to capture a few new scenics.
It started last Sunday as I returned from a surreal but enjoyable sojourn to the Lake District, enjoying the company I was keeping and taking a few snaps of my companion for the day. Nothing for publication via this medium but all very nice nonetheless. We returned as a thick fog descended on the region, a fog which seemed to last for days and almost masked the surprise illumination of a local landmark.
Ashton Memorial – a tribute from local linoleum magnate Lord Ashton to his late first wife and not completed until his second marriage was well underway – was lit purple to highlight the issue of pancreatic cancer. I’m no stranger to the site and find it difficult to get too excited about it after all this time. And frustratingly now it was different, energised, it was too foggy to get a decent shot of anyway…
A complex photographic challenge can provide a welcome distraction from the world though and I wasn’t about to let this one go without a second attempt. The following day the mists cleared briefly as the fragile daylight drained away and set up the perfect picture with more ease than I had expected. Half an hour later the visibility would once again be negligible, and walking through the park I turned around and smiled. But I couldn’t see a thing…
As the days passed by my mind turned to fireworks and the prospect of capturing them from a decent vantage point. I found one, and when the day came it was hit-and-miss for a while as to whether the rain would hold off and the wind would drop enough to try for a long exposure shot of the castle. Trial and error was the only thing I could rely on in the solitude of the dark night but amongst my footage one image stood out more than the others, nicely bookending the week of lights over Lancaster.
I’m happy with that.