A nice thing happened today

A few weeks ago we spent a few days in a cottage in the Scottish borders. During the week I had to return to work for three days, including a visit to London, but whilst visiting for the first weekend I took a couple of pictures of a local castle. Whilst at home I developed and scanned the film and made a test print and also one from my trip to London during the same week. I left these in the cottage when we left on the second weekend as they were not final prints, but I thought the owners might like them. Anyway, I got home today to find a lovely Christmas card thanking us for the 'wonderful poctures' (!!) and saying that they had had the castle print framed and it was now hung in the cottage.

Mike

Janet's comment recovered from backup:

janet Smith said:

Isn't it nice when someone enjoys your work, thanks for sharing your nice moment with us.

Click to expand...

Mike,

I second that! We celebrate with you! That's really special when people go out of their way to be appreciative. Can you share the picture here too?

Asher

Asher and Janet, thanks. Yes I was very happy that they had made the effort. The picture is the one below - the castle in the background shot from the grounds of it's ruined chapel. The window frames you see in the foreground are a part of the remains of the chapel/

Shot on FP4 with the Ikon and Sonnar.

Mike

Mike,

Thanks for sharing this. I like the contrast between the stone structure which is dilapidated and trees in the b.g. which can self renew. I always wonder what happens that has people abandon such a great investment in wealth, labor and faith to have such a building progress to rubble and skeleton of the beauty it must have been. Is the white effect dues to an artifact or is it some softer limestone within the granite, or maybe a fungus?

Asher

Asher, the castle - Hermitage Castle - was a stronghold at the time of the Border Reivers. These were lawless families who thought nothing of committing murder and so on in their theiving o cattle and so on. They were viewed as having no regard for life at all and these valleys were considered ungovernable. Eventually, the Bishop of Edinburgh (I believe) cursed the Reivers in a curse some 1,000 words long!!

The castle once belonged to a lover of Mary Queen of Scots, who rode alone or almost unaccompanied from Edinburgh to see him after he was injured in a skirmish with said Reivers. On her return she fell from her horse in a river and herself became ill for a time. Apparently the papers were full of the gossip - nothing changes it seems.

The white is what I know as silver moss - a lichen that grows on limestone and which we used to use toconstruct well dressings when I was a boy and my granfather designed the main wells for our village and another.

http://www.welldressing.com/

http://stoneymiddletonparishcouncil.org.uk/news/000063/stoney_middleton_well_dressing__2008.html

Oliver was my grandfather and the second ted my father.

Mike

This is an alternative view - I've spent about 4 hours cleaning up the neg because I made a mess of it... However, I like the composition although I'm still working on the tonality. Any thoughts gratefully received.

Mike

Hermitage Castle from the ruined Hermitage Chapel