Lindisfarne

I'm procrastinating doing my corrections, so it's time for photos!

I went to Holy Island this past weekend on a day trip for postgrads. It's a semi-detached island off the coast of Northumbria, where St. Cuthbert hid from Vikings, and the English defended themselves from the Scots, and is presently home to extremely cute cottages, a surprisingly small castle on a very big hill, and also a meadery. Also, some great views.

Unfortunately, the afternoon did not begin auspiciously, weather-wise:

The shoreline...

...leading up to the castle

 I struggled mightily trying to relearn how to make the camera do things.

Raindrops on grass. ART WAS ATTEMPTED.

 I completely bollixed up the interior shots, but it was surprisingly unimpressive--the castle had been renovated into a summer home at the end of the nineteenth century, leading to it becoming a rather cosy place, all told. The only shot that came out at all was the kitchen:

Cosy!

The hill is largely responsible for the castle looking as imposing as it does.

I attempt nature photography.

A slightly nicer shot of the exterior? Bit too dark, had weird problems with colour. OVERCAST LIGHTING! *shakes fist*

But then, miraculously, while I had lunch in a pub, the skies cleared, and the rest of the afternoon became glorious, just in time to check out the priory and graveyard. Huzzah for picturesque ruins!

The island in the background is the castle. It looks far more impressive from that distance.

Graveyard shot.

More high contrast shenanigans. It was so bright all of a sudden!

Further attempted nature photography. Totally a high concept commentary on life and death, with that little bird and the headstone. I totally did that on purpose.Totally.

The path leading away from the priory, towards the beach.

The beach! I really like this shot, actually. That kid's red jacket was fortuitous.

Since the island is only cut off during high tide, when the tide is low you can walk out and everything is covered in seaweed and mussels. I felt bad about walking on them. Also, there's a tiny crab hiding in this photo, under a rock. It refused to be photogenic.

A view of the priory and church from the beach.

There are giant obelisks on the English coast to serve as guides for ships, presumably, but they mostly just look cool and alien from the island.

Someone attempting to fish.

More obelisks!

And again.

Clearly, I only sort of remembered how to do photography by the end. But all in all, it was a very enjoyable day out.

Lumiere, aka adventures in night photography

I have been felled by a head cold, which has made Marx nigh incomprehensible to me. This is very inconvenient, as I am supposed to be editing my Marx chapter at the moment. I am five pages in, and it is terrible. Both the chapter, and my efforts towards fixing it.

This is all very problematic. So I decided to ignore all that this evening, and go to Lumiere instead.

Lumiere is a big light show that has now come to Durham twice, and is pretty much a series of public art installations which play off of their architectural surrounds to look cool and maybe say something interesting. It's a big tourist attraction, and is lovely and fun. When it was here last, I was on my way back from a conference and had a very enjoyable wander about in it while discombobulated by travel and sleep-deprivation. This time, I planned ahead, put on my awesome Russian hat, and brought my camera!

Let the adventure in night photography begin:

A scale model of the sun, installed on the university's science site. It shifted and changed presumably in an accurate depiction of the sun's currents and spots. Also, there was creepy music, and a projection of an eye on the side of the library.

On the way up to the cathedral. Don't ask, I have no idea.

The cathedral was subject to a massive light show that ran through, from what I could tell, the history of the north east's religious life, from the invasions of the vikings, to the writing of the Lindisfarne Gospels, to the construction of the cathedral itself. It was backed in surround sound by appropriate monastic chanting through to 18th century orchestral music. Very, very cool.

Some of the manuscript illuminations projected onto the cathedral.

Depiction of the cathedral's construction.

Inside was a more abstract installation--wires randomly gnarled and suspended between the columns, plus light projectors, made for a strange, ever-shifting lightning bug-type effect. I had a major struggle getting shots of it in the darkness.

The actual projections, versus how they presented on the wires.

In the cathedral's courtyard. Ghostly dresses!

They were fibre-optic, so they shifted colour every few seconds.

I definitely only scratched the surface of the exhibit, and there were some parts which I did see but the crowds were too annoying or the installation was too movement-oriented to be worth photographing. Still, it was great to have a look around despite it being cold and rather wet. Having been mostly inside moping, sleeping, and blowing my nose for the past three days, this was a welcome respite.

Trip to Bern/Communing with the Shelleys in the Alps

More photos! This time with decidedly less imminent rain.

So I went to Bern to meet up with le grandmother, hang out away from my computer, and generally toodle about a new city for a bit. It was fab, and I managed to get more work done there than I had in the week previous, so that was a bit of a relief. Bern is lovely, exceedingly accessible and almost obsessively clean, and it was balmy and bright for three out of the four days I was there, which was fantastic. With no further ado, to the photos! (Sorry, there are a lot of them. I was a total tourist. In fact, these should probably go under a cut.)

Terrible experiments in photography, aka trip to Gibside

So I will be spamming with photos of Bern in a very short while, but first! In August, a couple of friends and I went on a day trip to Gibside, which is a giant sprawling 18th century estate outside of Newcastle, and I have some terrible attempts at photography to show for it. It was a very grey day and began raining towards the end, so the lighting was terrible, but we did have a lot of fun looking at English bourgeois imitations of Palladian architecture, imagining what it would be like to ride horses around a giant rambling estate, and being sorely tempted to climb some fences to get a closer look at some of the more falling-apart buildings (we eventually refrained, because all of us are on visas and deportation would probably be inconvenient). So! Some highly manipulated and sketchy photos:

The chapel for the Bowes family, who owned the estate. SUPER PALLADIAN. There was someone playing terrible pop songs on the piano inside, which kind of ruined the effect. Nonetheless, very pretty.

There was a big walled-in garden. B decided that she needed one for her future home.

I attempt to be artistic! Flowers were actually shootable without the weather ruining everything.

More flowers. 

The entrance to the garden.

There were apple trees badly in need of picking.

FAVOURITE PART: The orangerie. 

I am utterly failing to capture how awesome the orangerie was. It is descending into ruin very prettily.

Was all glassed-in with state-of-the-art windows and roof during the 19th century.

Tried really hard to be artistic. Filters and gradients fail me.

Giant monument to liberty on the other side of the estate. Ridiculously ostentatious and great.

The banquet hall, which you can't actually get inside at the moment, which is very frustrating. Photo had to be taken from down the hill and across a manmade pond. 

So there you are, fun at National Trust sites, followed by fun with photoshop/lightroom! B and I are hopefully going to try and do more trips like this, because it was really easy to get to by bus, and a nice break from research.

Thankfully, the upcoming photos of Bern are far nicer, because there was real sunshine. Also, I'm slowly getting better at fixing white balance and stuff, so. Please stand by!