Nice work if you can get it

Saturday about 10 days ago the weather was rather inclement, to say the least.  But I found myself on my own, for various reasons, and was in the mood to do something.

So I donned my worst weather gear and headed out.  The car took me to Downhill, which is a lovely place to be at any time of the year, really.  I had the Franka with me, which folds up nicely to rest inside my coat pocket.  Only takes a few seconds to whip it out, unfold it, check the speed/aperture settings, set the focus and press the shutter release.  And then remember you have to manually cock the shutter first.  I was guessing the exposure, as one has to from time to time to keep the old grey cells working optimally. 

I did say the weather was poor, didn't I?

That would be the River Bann estuary down there in the murk.  You get a nice vignetting effect for free when you're using the Franka at large apertures, as you can see.

For a change I decided to squelch my way up to the ruined house.  

No ordinary house, mind you, this one belonged to The Earl Bishop, aka Frederick Hervey.  He was Lord Bishop of Derry in the 18th Century and later became the Earl of Bristol.  A recent programme on the old TV informed us that in those days, the Bishopry alone had an income equivalent to about £1.6 million in today's money.  A reasonable amount to live on in those days, I should think, and hence the house, which apparently housed a major art collection as well as many objets d'art from across Europe.

I know, there's something happening in the middle of the steps there - probably a raindrop on the push-on yellowish filter I was using (which came with the Ikonta-charity-shop-find a few years ago.)

More to come from this neck of the woods tomorrow.