East from Cam Long Down
Yew Berries on John Wilkin's TombOne of the challenges this walk poses for me from time to time is not related to the walk. It's the wind. Photography with a large format camera requires the use of very small apertures (typically f32, f45 or f64) in order to secure sufficient depth of field for sharp focus. This in turn leads to having to use very slow shutter speeds in order to let sufficient light on to the film. If a sharply captured image is what you're after, and I generally am, then wind causing the foliage to thrash about like crazy is your number one enemy. At least it is in the relative darkness of a woodland walk which again was the case for a substantial part of today's walk. And today was not just breezy. Well, it started breezy at 8am - and steadily became strong and gusty. All the more frustrating as today I found the best area of the walk so far for Hartstongue ferns of which I'm desperate to make some good photographs. The woodland stretch between Nympsfield Long Barrow and Uley Long Barrow has many fine areas of these beautiful ferns but they were waving about like promenaders at the Last Night of the Proms. I will return when it's calm - John Sexton's "Quiet Light" is called for. I did find one small very sheltered area where I chanced a picture - fingers crossed - which I'll get to process next week.
I stopped for my cheese sandwich lunch on top of Cam Long Down. In spite of the wind it was warm in the occasional sun and I found some shelter from the wind on the lee side where I must admit to lying back and dozing for 10 minutes. I was woken by the croaking cries of 3 ravens directly above me enjoying the uplifting wind from the escarpment. It seems that for the sheer fun of it they were engaging together in their spectacular 'flip upside down' aerobatics. A joy to watch. And several hundred feet above them was an elegant slender sailplane enjoying the updraft in almost the same manner.
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