Big Blue Sky ...

For this week's Sunday Challenge for which the theme was simply May 7th ... either something you did on that day (i.e. yesterday) or something related to that day perhaps in history.

At first I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do. I looked online for something that had happened in the past on that day that sparked an idea of an image, but that didn't really produce any inspiration.

Then I looked to see if I had any unpublished archive shots that had perhaps been taken on that day in previous years, but again came up with nothing ... oh how I wish I'd undertaken a 365 challenge!

However, a meet up with our good friend Gillian for earlier in the week at Fountains Abbey had to be rescheduled and so I decided to use that as an opportunity to take some photos I could perhaps use for the challenge.

In addition to taking shots of individual subjects I also had a notion of trying some panorama shots. This is a technique I've long admired, but never tackled before this week. However, Graham Chance was kind enough to offer me some advice and encouraged by what he said I felt I was at least able to give it a go, which is just what I did.

I did one through the week of the borders in our back garden just to get a feel for what is involved and I might post it in time if only to show my very first attempt.

This particular one is the result of 10 separate images shot at Fountains Abbey yesterday (each one taken in portrait mode) and then stitched together in Photoshop. I was amazed at how easy it was to actually do as Photoshop does most of the initial work for you and the automatically merged image was fairly pleasing, although I did go on to tweak the perspective and do some basic editing.

I have another 3 panorama shots from the day so I might also post them in due course. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy seeing this one. It isn't perfect by any stretch, but I feel for my first attempt out in the real world it's not too bad.

As for Fountains Abbey itself, it is one of the largest and best preserved ruined Cistercian monasteries in England. It's owned by the National Trust, located approximately 3 miles south-west of Ripon in North Yorkshire, and was founded in 1132. One-of-a-kind, this special place is now recognised as a World Heritage Site.

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