Shilbottle at night - 28/07/2007

[this_is_gav]

Last night I randomly decided to scare the few members of the village who would still be up by walking around dressed like a SAS guy with torches and kit everywhere. OK, not quite, but it felt like it. I'm talking 2:30-4:30am (check the EXIF for the exact time on each), and as impulse had it, I pulled my camera out and had a wander around seeing what it was like in the dark. Took my flash with me, and these are the results. Not many keepers among them unfortunately. Click for the full-res image, some of which have been cropped.

//edit: I'm aware some of the pics may appear too dark on many monitors - if that's the case, get a better one.


Naturally, the first place to go was the graveyard. Where else on a pitch black night at 2am? This is the rear of the church, and has some steps leading down into what I assume is a storage area. As kids we were told that once someone was cleaning the clock (next image), fell over this roof here, and onto the stairs below, their body still being in this storage room. That 'blood' has always been there as long as I can remember None of us buy into this tale, but it does look like blood at first glance - on closer inspection I guess it's the water from the drain above reacting with the limestone(?) or something.


The tower of the church, aforementioned clock included. Bit of noise starts to kick in where the flash (a naked Nikon SB-600) can't compensate.


We've an old lime kiln around a mile from the village, and while we often went there in a mid-teens camping and such, I've not seen the place for a good decade now. Here's a random shot looking out onto the water where the quarry was. Shame about the branch in the top left coming into the pic, but I wanted the street lights in the shot too. It looks like that might be a duck on the water, though I never heard or saw anything. I've lightened this up a bit, so it's rather noisy.


Not a good shot of anything in particular, I just focused on a reflection from one of those street lights, and liked the effect. The central one makes it look like the water is on fire.


A wander down to the Welfare park next they've recently had skate park installed, and here's one of the ramp things. Not for bikes, trust me...


Home of David Ellis. Perhaps.


Sofa of David Ellis. Perhaps.
Well he did say he wanted a half-pipe in his living room... it's a start...


3:58am, and dawn started a good 45 minutes back. Here's a shot looking over towards the nearby RAF radar station. Wish I'd brought a tripod for some of these shots so I could drop the exposure a bit. There's hundreds of decent shots spoiled by lights trailing slightly


A shot looking over towards the sea. Still a bit soft and noisy at the same time - not a good combination!


Silhouette shot looking from the tennis/basketball/football courts, again out towards the impending sunrise.


Not at all come out well, but I like the idea behind it. Flash lighting up the foreground of court, but lots of glowing edges, particularly on the fence and basketball board. And no, I don't know why someone's left a football either.


Having gone looking for a way to get into my old first school (which is like Guantanamo Bay now) I headed back towards the playground on my way home. Here's another silhouette shot, this time featuring some swings. Again, a bit too soft around the edges.

Yes, they're not particularly good photos, but it's the first time I've taken the camera out at night, so it was a learning experience. I'll get the hang of f/stops and exposure times eventually. Suggestions for settings would be greatly appreciated.

Just bumped into the one guy walking his dogs around 3:45am... don't know which of us was the more surprised. I should have stayed around for the sun-rise itself, but I was bored of taking photos, and I'd still be have been waiting for another hour or so.