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This year I will be mostly... taking a photo every day, and posting it up here for you all to see and comment on if you feel inclined (please do). It's not an original idea, I stole it off a friend and many other people are doing the same as I speak, but I thought it seemed like a great idea to get used to my new toy, my Canon Eos 500D with Tamron 18-250mm Macro lens - my first digital SLR.

A lot of sites online talk about 'project 365' where people are encouraged to take a photo every day, but while their take on it is to create a personal history of the photographer, I wanted to make it a bit more abstract, more about the world around me. So this isn't meant to be a photo diary of my life, I am striving for each photo to be 'good' because of its artistic and technical merit, not because it's personal to me. Having said that personal subject matter will inevitably creep in as inspiration, but that's allowed, the book I'm reading claim that "every picture we take is merely a self-portrait of our inner psyche"!

I had a think of a couple of ideas for themes and settled on 'moods'. Then I was hit by indecision as to what to do if I take a photo I like and want to upload as my daily snap, but it doesn't fit the theme. So I have decided that the theme is just for inspiration rather than as a criteria, the photos can be of anything. That way I get the most flexibility of what to upload, and still have a muse.

While I'll be taking photos every day, I'll only upload them every few days, so keep checking back. I'm not anticipating the photos to be groundbreaking (at least not to start with!), the whole point is to improve so I won't be great initially. But I'll still try my best which will hopefully keep it interesting. Please feel free to add whatever comments you like (hopefully constructive!) as that will help me as much as the process of actually taking a photo a day, I will endeavour to reply to them all.

For my trip reports blog see http://fidgetsadventures.blogspot.com


Thursday 10 March 2011

Thursday 10th March 2011

I previously mentioned the Harecastle Tunnels - two canal tunnels (one still in use and one collapsed) and two disused sections of one railway tunnel - all built in the 1700s and 1800s and all 2km long. Today I went to the southern portal of the canal tunnels and met two lovely gentlemen who were sprucing up the paintwork, who showed me around and gave me a little history.

The canal tunnels were built before narrowboats were powered and in the Brindley tunnel (built 1770-1777) the boatmen 'legged' the boats through the tunnel while the horses were walked over the hill. This, the parallel Telford tunnel (completed in 1827) was built with a towpath for horses. The Brindley tunnel collapsed and when boats became self powered fans were installed in this one to extract the exhaust fumes. This tunnel is rumoured to be haunted by the Kidsgrove Boggart, a woman who was decapitated with a piece of slate and dumped in the canal and who is looking for a replacement head.


18mm, 25s, f/9, ISO 100
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3 comments:

  1. Dan Lane11 March 2011 at 15:04

    Interesting history and a nice photo too, was it naturally lit near the mouth of the tunnel or did you use an off camera flash?

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  2. Sarah Clough11 March 2011 at 15:35

    Thanks. I don't have a flash bar the inbuilt one but there was just enough natural light in there. The first picture on this page shows the tunnel entrances, the square beige building on the right is the entrance to the Telford Tunnel, it houses the fans and masks the original arched entrance. The black doors were open.

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  3. brenda.clough13 March 2011 at 13:56

    You find some unusual and interesting places, Sarah. I really enjoy your delves into our history.

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