2020 Photo Challenge #26 – From Pyrenees to Pennines

Back in the Good Old Days, did you have a Box Brownie? Do you remember hiding yourself in a darkened room to fiddle with the film, threading the spool into your camera and winding it on, only to do the whole thing in reverse twelve shots later when you had to get the thing out to be developed at the chemist’s shop? Do you remember spending your pocket money to have two whole films – that’s twenty four shots – to last you the whole holiday, and the frustrating wait of a week or so before your photos were developed?

Kodak Box Brownie much like mine (Wikimedia Commons)

Jude has asked us to remind ourselves of those days in this week’s Photo Challenge, by asking us to limit ourselves to twelve shots. Jude however is profligate. She’s allowing us to use all twelve shots in a single outing. How improvident! Even so, even with this quite generous allowance, I remembered the old anxieties. Should I take this? Would I regret it because there was something better round the corner? What if I ran out of shots?

Here’s my offering. A friend and I walked on Tuesday (socially distanced, of course) from Ripon to Bishop Monkton by the Ripon Canal, along some country lanes, then back to Ripon alongside the Rivers Ure and Skell. We enjoyed many quiet moments appreciating the waterscapes, the landscapes reached on foot from our starting point in the city centre. Nine miles under our belts, renewed and refreshed.

As a homage to my Box Brownie Days, I’ll show you the photos first in monochrome, then in Glorious Technicolor. It didn’t feel right to edit them in any way (apart from translating them into monochrome).

Newby Hall sen from fields near Bishop Monkton.

The River Ure in spate at Bridge Hewick near Ripon.

Most look neither better nor worse in my eyes in the two different formats – just different. A couple don’t seem to work, and back in black-and-white days I probably wouldn’t have taken them. Just one works better I think. This journey into the past, thinking more carefully before pointing-and-clicking has been an illuminating and surprising pleasure which I’m sharing with Leya’s Lens Artists Challenge. Click on any image to view full size.

Newby Hall seen from across fields near Bishop Monkton.

This new perspective on photography would have been perfect for Becky’s Square Perspectives: but my pictures aren’t square. I’ll choose one and square it up. Maybe …. this one.