Alex and I were meeting up to drive to The Kelpies today
It was a bit cold when I left the house to pick up Alex from the train station. By the time we got to Helix Park where the Kelpies live, it was ‘Baltic’. The wind was getting up and the temperature was going down. To start with it was fine, we even got in free because the car park is unsupervised between September and March, or thereabouts. We took some photos of the unicorn at the entrance to the car park. It’s made from woven strips of willow, we think on an armature of either copper tubes or maybe just cleverly jointed willow. I imagine it looked good through Alex’s new glass, a 70-350mm APSC lens. It wouldn’t work on my Full Frame camera or I’d have taken some shots. It’s also too expensive and too niche for me.
The main subject of the day was to be the kelpies themselves, so we walked down the long avenue to have a look at them. Alex wanted to photograph them from a hill above the car park and I wanted much the same viewpoint, but looking through some ornamental grass, rather than over it. Once I’d taken them I wasn’t impressed with the results. We walked on the meet the beasts.
I’ve been to the kelpies many times now because they are one of Scamp’s favourite sculptures and mine too, I must admit, but I wanted to try some different views. With that in mind, while Alex was photographing the 1/10th scale maquettes outside the cafe, I wandered along beside the canal under the motorway flyover and got some different perspectives on the monster horses. One I haven’t worked on yet on the computer was taken with Baron the ‘head up’ Kelpie rearing over the motorway. Different because you don’t see his body, just from the neck up.
I took a few more, but after we met up again, we went for coffee and a sandwich. The heat when we entered the cafe was a delight. You don’t realise how cold you are until you come in to the warm. Fed and watered, we left to face that wind that seemed to be getting stronger. I took a few shots of the maquettes with the wee 1/10th scale man beside them, helping to give a sense of scale. After a fair bit of work, that became PoD. A few photos later we agreed to call it a day. Windchill was getting to my face and fingers and to Alex to I imaging because he was the one who suggested we head for home.
A total of 93 photos taken with 8 of those rejected. Alex had taken 99. We had both taken a lot of ‘doublers’, but you’ve got to do that sometimes to cover all bases.
I dropped him back at the station and then realised when I got home that his woolly bonnet was in the foot well of the car. A good day, even if it was very cold.
Today’s prompt was ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’. I started out intending to sketch the moon reflecting on a river, because Moon River was the most famous song in the film, but a doodle of Audrey Hepburn quickly took shape instead. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, but not the Moon River flow in this case!
Tomorrow we’re hoping to go the a tea dance, but first I think we might need some practise time.