First day of May and the weather not look good, but decided to risk a five mile morning walk along Shakespeare Avon way and along Cleeve Hill in Worcestershire not to be confused with Cleeve hill in Gloucestershire.

Shakespeare Avon way

Parking up in Middle Littleton then through Windmill Hill Nature reserve then down and through Offenham Park to reach Shakespeare’s way along the river avon.

Always enjoy a photo walk along a river bank.  Cutting out as much as the sky as possible as dull and lifeless.  Using a polariser to cut out reflections off the water and to try and achieve some water motion blur with a smaller aperture of f/16.

Do like the sharpness of above river avon photo, like I got the hyperfocal point right on the lilies and reeds.  No need for a smaller aperture than f/11 as no motion to blur with f/11 keeping near and far objects in focus.  Where are the fishermen?

Along Cleeve Hill

At the end of Shakespeares Avon way you take a path ascending up to the top of cleeve hill only 50 meters high.  Its then a mile walk through woodland returning to Windmill hill nature reserve.   From atop Cleeve Hill there are some nice views westward over the vale of Evesham.

What makes the photo above is the foreground interest in the cowslip flowers and the vacant lonely park bench, where you can imagine many people have sat awhile and admired the views over the flat lands of Worcestershire.

Cleeve Prior Tithe Barn

After Cleeve hill the last leg of the photo walk was heading back across fields to middle Littleton to admire the Tithe Barn still standing there.

Due to high contrast in the photo above of the Tithe barn opted for 3 exposures two stops apart to later combine post processing HDR.  Used a faster shutter speed via smaller wider aperture of f/8 due to the pigeons on the rooftop of the Tithe barn, just hoping they would stay still while the 3 exposures fired.

Just after taking some photos of the Tithe Barn in Cleeve Prior the skies opened up and it started to rain, lucky I was only 2 minutes walk away from car.  Good walk for bank holiday may day and good timing.