After the slightly uncharacteristic outburst of my last post (thanks for all the tweets and comments by the way, they were very much appreciated), it’s time for something a little more upbeat.
We went to Sherwood Forest at the weekend – the first time I’ve ever been despite living in Nottingham for seven years (!) The main reason for this is that Sherwood Forest is really, really far away.
The Disney film is more than a little misleading, put it that way. You can’t just step out of the castle into the forest unless you have twenty mile long legs. And if you did have legs that long, you’d probably be somewhere a lot more fascinating than Nottingham.
Anyway, it was perfect timing because the Robin Hood festival was on. This consisted of people wandering around dressed as twee maidens and archers and Robin Hood, but there was also some excellent stuff like falconry, archery, jousting and some hilariously crude street performers. There were a few themed stalls, a small funfair and a few other things like pot throwing and face painting too. Ultimately it was definitely a family day out, but we had a good time despite not having any small children with us (in fact, it was definitely a bonus considering the number of evil-looking wooden swords around).
I got mocked for taking LOTS of pictures of trees. I did point out that you never know when a bark texture will come in handy, but Joe’s response was basically, ‘Yes, but you don’t need EIGHTEEN pictures of the same damn tree’.
Which was completely unfair, because I’d only taken about nine.
I ended up taking about 320 photos, which was actually pretty reasonable considering I took them for textures, stock photos, vintage photos, tilt-shift editing and general Flickr/Facebook display. My back was hurting by the end of the day because my beast of a lens weighs an absolute ton. I love it though because it’s just so damn versatile. I honestly think that my DSLR and awesome lens may be the best things I’ve ever bought. It’s hard to describe the absolute simple pleasure I get from photography and photo editing – they just hit all the creative and beautiful and colour triggers in my brain that make me insanely happy. I wish I’d bought a proper camera years ago.
And I only got accosted once, by a scary man wanting to tie me up, so all in all I’d consider it a successful day.
(The rest of the set can be seen here).
6 Comments
What a perfect time to head to Sherwood Forest! If I ever manage to plan a trip to the UK, I’m going to have to arrange it so I can go to that festival – it looks like so much fun!
22/08/2012 at 1:28 amI just got back from my trip and read this post and your previous one. I’m happy to see that despite the issues in your life right now, you and Joe still manage to enjoy yourselves from time to time.
Call me dumb, but I never realized that Nottingham and Sherwood Forest were actual places! The photos you took remind me very much of the scenes in the 2010 Robin Hood movie. Also, my favorite picture is the last one on this post. So cute!
22/08/2012 at 3:01 pmThose are some lovely pictures. Especially the wheat ones, I just love those. And the owl!!
22/08/2012 at 4:38 pmIt is just not right for you to be given a hard time for taking lots of awesome photos. Those are great by the way. Especially the tree detail.
22/08/2012 at 9:57 pmGreat photos! Especially the third to the last one because it’s so colorful. :)P
25/08/2012 at 6:47 pmOh no, you’re one of those photographers? haha. My sister-in-law is like that with taking a billion pictures of the same thing over and over again. To us normal people we just cannot wrap our heads around it and it annoys the hell out of us. I’m glad you find a guy who will put up with it. But you did get some pretty awesome photos! I would have loved to be there for that festival. I love festivals and that looks like a good one!
03/09/2012 at 12:17 am