Blacko Tower, Nelson, Lancashire

Blacko Tower, Nelson, Lancashire (Click for larger)

This is a photograph that I made earlier this week up on the Lancashire / Yorkshire border. I had intended to try and get quite a bit closer to the tower, and did plenty of research before heading out only to find a large “Private Property – Keep out sign” on the gate at the foot of the hill. On this occasion, I opted to respect the wishes of the landowner and found an alternate vantage point. Having made the image, it was close to dark for the yomp back down the hill to the car park.

All was going fine until I crossed the penultimate styal at which point I had to cross through the middle of a field of very inquisitive sheep, who, by the time I reached the middle of the field had all congregated behind me. About 70 of them. And they were getting closer, and bolder. They had horns, and weren’t exactly small. At this point I was getting a little apprehensive. Would they charge at me for invading their field? Do sheep even do that? Were there any documented cases of people being trampled to death by a herd of crazed mutton? The edge of the field and safety seemed miles away. And then I crossed a small gully about 3/4 of the way across the field, and they just stopped. I began to breathe a little more easily though continually looking over my shoulder. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, I reached safety……

The photograph is a 9 frame HDR (there was an extensive contrast range in the scene – from the setting sun to this side of the tower) with selected frames processed in Nik’s HDR Efex Pro, and then some selective editing in Lightroom.

That’s all for this week.

N

This entry was posted on Friday, November 18th, 2011 at 4:16 pm. It is filed under Landscapes, Photographs and tagged with Blacko Tower, dusk, hdr, Lancashire, Landscape, Nelson, sheep, Sunset, Yorkshire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.