The Honeypot Beneath the Bridge
She seemed like a very nice young lady, sitting there with the water rushing past her bare feet. Quite charming indeed as she gazed artfully in the direction of the mobile phone being pointed at her by her young male companion. An engaging scene it may have been, but neither of them had noticed the gloomy looking individual standing behind his tripod, which was planted in the water thirty yards downriver below the bridge, also pointing his camera straight at her. Not because he wanted her to be the subject of his image you understand - but the bridge and the waterfall were very much in his mind as he harrumphed to himself under his breath and cursed the rest of the human race for existing. For an age she sat there as her admirer danced from bank to bridge and back from bridge to bank, snapping her from almost every conceivable angle. By now the photographer down by the river was already beginning to lose heart. Just how many photos of her did he need?
Packhorse Bridge and the Three Shires Head is a spot that’s likely to test the most patient of togs. Deliberately we’d waited until late on a Sunday afternoon - goodness knows what it must be like here in the middle of such a warm day. Dave and Lee had taken one look at the crowded space below the bridge and moved on without stopping, but I figured I might be able to blend three or four together and airbrush everyone from the finished image. Above me to the left, four young lads loitered, while in the pool to the right, a family splashed about as if school had been cancelled the next day. An endless sequence of people pottered past, over the bridge and back again, seemingly undecided as to where they’d left their cars on the lonely A54, somewhere unseen above the deep valley, or whether they even intended to return to them at all. Why not stop and really irritate the grumpy man as he stood in a trance behind his tripod, wondering whether they might all eventually clear off before darkness fell?
Eventually the young couple departed, and I composed the image again. Would I include the tree or would I go in closer? Portrait or landscape? Well obviously I did all four, and as I congratulated myself on a clean wide angle shot I realised it wasn’t a clean shot at all, when from the corner of my eye I spotted the four young lads sitting on the high wall right beside the tree. I zoomed into the image I’d just taken on the back of my camera, only to see four young Picassos sitting in the top left hand corner, their abstract presence demonstrating just how distorted the lens is at the extremities of its widest focal lengths. That was the least of my problems. I sighed, dumped the tripod and bag on the platform above me before scrambling up from the water to join them, and headed off to find out what the other two were up to. It was only seven thirty, and with over ninety minutes to go before it started getting dark, there was still plenty of time. If only everyone else would just go home. As I crossed the bridge, three more eager looking youngsters arrived armed with towels and wearing bathing costumes. From the opposite direction, a pair of young women arrived and headed straight for the water, whilst striking up a conversation with the two men who sat on the bank smoking something that smelled decidedly illegal. I tried not to groan too loudly. At least we were the only photographers here - although perhaps that was because all the others knew what would be lying in wait.
After half an hour or more of trying other compositions beyond the honeypot, we returned. By now things were a little quieter, although the group of three were still in the river, the waterfalls failing to drown out their whoops and hoots. We zoomed into the spaces where they weren’t, giving up on the big view. By now the heat of the day had gone, but while we were in woolly hats and warm coats, they were still wearing their swimming shorts and little else. Surely they couldn’t last much longer without hypothermia kicking in?
“I didn’t realise England was like this. I thought it was just all one big city. It’s so beautiful here,” the young Indian man gushed at me as I made my way to the bridge to see whether I could find a new composition. I wondered whether he'd ever studied any maps of his adopted homeland, and if so, what he thought the big green bits were supposed to represent. He was one of the trio who’d thwarted our ambitions these last forty minutes or so. In the closing moments before nine, we finally owned the space and had quickly grabbed our shots before anyone else came along. “You’re so lucky in England. It’s peaceful. In India we have so many problems. The Government……..” he continued on loop. Quite what the problem with Mr Modi’s government was he never really explained as I peered hopefully at the falls and wondered whether I’d get that last shot. Eventually I politely explained that I was going to try and get another picture of the waterfall, upon which he shook my hand before surprising me with a big bear hug and returning to his friends. I think he’d been helping himself to the dodgy substances too. He was right, I reflected. Relatively speaking, we are a pretty easy going bunch, fortunate to live in a stable country despite all of the doom elsewhere around the world. Even if it didn’t seem particularly peaceful here today.
Dave was still on the other side of the river, trying to extricate himself from a conversation with a highly talkative octogenarian dog walker - one of those souls who despite reaching a great age had yet to learn that the art of a two way conversation included listening to what the other person had to say. Lee and I headed up the opposite bank towards the road to wait for him. Somehow, although goodness knows how, we’d managed to steal a shot or two from the honeypot beneath the bridge.
The Honeypot Beneath the Bridge
She seemed like a very nice young lady, sitting there with the water rushing past her bare feet. Quite charming indeed as she gazed artfully in the direction of the mobile phone being pointed at her by her young male companion. An engaging scene it may have been, but neither of them had noticed the gloomy looking individual standing behind his tripod, which was planted in the water thirty yards downriver below the bridge, also pointing his camera straight at her. Not because he wanted her to be the subject of his image you understand - but the bridge and the waterfall were very much in his mind as he harrumphed to himself under his breath and cursed the rest of the human race for existing. For an age she sat there as her admirer danced from bank to bridge and back from bridge to bank, snapping her from almost every conceivable angle. By now the photographer down by the river was already beginning to lose heart. Just how many photos of her did he need?
Packhorse Bridge and the Three Shires Head is a spot that’s likely to test the most patient of togs. Deliberately we’d waited until late on a Sunday afternoon - goodness knows what it must be like here in the middle of such a warm day. Dave and Lee had taken one look at the crowded space below the bridge and moved on without stopping, but I figured I might be able to blend three or four together and airbrush everyone from the finished image. Above me to the left, four young lads loitered, while in the pool to the right, a family splashed about as if school had been cancelled the next day. An endless sequence of people pottered past, over the bridge and back again, seemingly undecided as to where they’d left their cars on the lonely A54, somewhere unseen above the deep valley, or whether they even intended to return to them at all. Why not stop and really irritate the grumpy man as he stood in a trance behind his tripod, wondering whether they might all eventually clear off before darkness fell?
Eventually the young couple departed, and I composed the image again. Would I include the tree or would I go in closer? Portrait or landscape? Well obviously I did all four, and as I congratulated myself on a clean wide angle shot I realised it wasn’t a clean shot at all, when from the corner of my eye I spotted the four young lads sitting on the high wall right beside the tree. I zoomed into the image I’d just taken on the back of my camera, only to see four young Picassos sitting in the top left hand corner, their abstract presence demonstrating just how distorted the lens is at the extremities of its widest focal lengths. That was the least of my problems. I sighed, dumped the tripod and bag on the platform above me before scrambling up from the water to join them, and headed off to find out what the other two were up to. It was only seven thirty, and with over ninety minutes to go before it started getting dark, there was still plenty of time. If only everyone else would just go home. As I crossed the bridge, three more eager looking youngsters arrived armed with towels and wearing bathing costumes. From the opposite direction, a pair of young women arrived and headed straight for the water, whilst striking up a conversation with the two men who sat on the bank smoking something that smelled decidedly illegal. I tried not to groan too loudly. At least we were the only photographers here - although perhaps that was because all the others knew what would be lying in wait.
After half an hour or more of trying other compositions beyond the honeypot, we returned. By now things were a little quieter, although the group of three were still in the river, the waterfalls failing to drown out their whoops and hoots. We zoomed into the spaces where they weren’t, giving up on the big view. By now the heat of the day had gone, but while we were in woolly hats and warm coats, they were still wearing their swimming shorts and little else. Surely they couldn’t last much longer without hypothermia kicking in?
“I didn’t realise England was like this. I thought it was just all one big city. It’s so beautiful here,” the young Indian man gushed at me as I made my way to the bridge to see whether I could find a new composition. I wondered whether he'd ever studied any maps of his adopted homeland, and if so, what he thought the big green bits were supposed to represent. He was one of the trio who’d thwarted our ambitions these last forty minutes or so. In the closing moments before nine, we finally owned the space and had quickly grabbed our shots before anyone else came along. “You’re so lucky in England. It’s peaceful. In India we have so many problems. The Government……..” he continued on loop. Quite what the problem with Mr Modi’s government was he never really explained as I peered hopefully at the falls and wondered whether I’d get that last shot. Eventually I politely explained that I was going to try and get another picture of the waterfall, upon which he shook my hand before surprising me with a big bear hug and returning to his friends. I think he’d been helping himself to the dodgy substances too. He was right, I reflected. Relatively speaking, we are a pretty easy going bunch, fortunate to live in a stable country despite all of the doom elsewhere around the world. Even if it didn’t seem particularly peaceful here today.
Dave was still on the other side of the river, trying to extricate himself from a conversation with a highly talkative octogenarian dog walker - one of those souls who despite reaching a great age had yet to learn that the art of a two way conversation included listening to what the other person had to say. Lee and I headed up the opposite bank towards the road to wait for him. Somehow, although goodness knows how, we’d managed to steal a shot or two from the honeypot beneath the bridge.