Bledlow Ridge

Bledlow Ridge - Sunday 14th January 2007

An accurate weather forecast was enough to force me to look at an OS map and choose a suitable location for a walk.

A few years ago, Bledlow Ridge was one of my ‘standard’ walks. For some reason, I have not returned for some time.

On 14th January I visited once more. Found my usual quiet lane in which to park and was instantly rewarded by the extensive views, in mild, sunny conditions.

Preferring to make good progress on foot, I only took 50 pictures, many of which were instantly deleted once seen on the ‘big screen’.

A small selection of images can be seen here.

A few have had the saturation increased, perhaps by too much.

Proceeding down the valley from my parked car, extensive views could be enjoyed.

Bledlow_landscape_view.jpg:

Turning the lens slightly to the left, and extending the zoom, reveals this agriculltural pattern in the landscape.

Bledlow_ploughed_landscape.jpg:

Walking further into the valley, with a low sun unable to break the horizon, this silhouhette is created.

Bledlow_silhouette_trees.jpg:

Having recently glanced at the club programme, I was aware there was something coming up I would be especially interested in. Digital panoramics. By way of an experiment I turned my camera to portrait format and snapped away. I failed to keep my camera in manual. Important lesson number one. Auto everything cameras would result in differing exposures, difficult to stitch smoothly. Anyway, using photostitch in Elements 3 I was pleased to note that there was a setting to eradicate badly matching exposures. I carefully slid the sliders until I was happy. However, each time I saved, the final image was faulty. You can see here there is clearly a join from the top of my shadow to the edge of the picture, despite me easily eradicating it in the preview. Tedious. I very much look forward to our session on 3rd April. Why not give this technique a try so you can join me in asking annoying questions on the night.

Merged-image-attempt.jpg:

Anyway, back to Bledlow Ridge. I could explain, following extensive web research, that the name Bledlow Ridge originates from two sources.

The latter part of the name, obviously, derives from the fact that it is located on top of a ridge. Various incarnations of the word ‘ridge’ have been incorporated in the village name down the centuries. These have included the Middle English ‘rigge’ and the old english ‘hrycg’. Probably easier to say by those who were old English, and perhaps those who are currently Welsh.

The former part of the name ‘bledlow’ is thought to be derived from a locally adopted (flavour enhancing) method of meat butchery, applied after slaughter. This was first used in Bronze Age times and is too gory to explain on a ‘family’ website.

But, then again, I could remind you that as with anything on the web you should

Bledlow_bewareofbull.jpg: