Stonehenge

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

Stonehenge was a highlight of my Wiltshire roadtrip in December, 2006, and I could only lament how rough the weather was on the day. I would have loved to see it in summer, but the greyness of the day certainly created atmospheric images. This is a generic view chosen to exclude the throngs of visitors, hundreds despite there being a 45-degree slant on the rain at the time. The chip has managed the exposure very well indeed, bringing out the median-values and detail on the subject while burning the stormy sky out to white. The image was sharpened and enhanced in the areas of colour and contrast. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. image by Mike.

Grey Day at the Stones

Click image to view at 800 pixels wide

The light was poor because the weather was bad: the weather report for that day said there were waterspouts along the Channel coast of England, and up in Wiltshire patchy rain was going through all morning under a solid grey Atlantic sky. The rain doesn't really copy in the image, though by the end of the shoot I couldn't protect the lens from collecting raindrops any longer. Shutter speeds were slow to catch the light so the rain blurred and disappeared, which was just as well as at times there was a 45-degree slant on it. The conditions were pretty miserable for my only visit so far to the Neolithic national monument of Stonehenge, in December 2006, but even that couldn't damped the wonder of actually being there and seeing the world-famous proto-historic astronomical site. Of course, the sun came out ten minutes after the bus left... The image has minimal enhancement and is cropped super-wide. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.