Fishing The Ure At Masham

2019-10-28 Ringed Tree

       Being able to capture photographs in any weather or surroundings is quite easy when you do not have anybody telling you what to shoot. Shoot for the conditions. What are the parameters and what are they not good for shooting and what are they good for shooting. then go and find something that will be easy in the conditions. 

       So with just a few hours free in bright overhead sunshine, contrast and highlights were the conditioning factors and so that is what I could shoot. Without these conditions I would never have found out how to put clouds on a river bed landscape with the texture of water overhead, or looked at the distortion created through the flowing water, with the speed of the current determining the blurring of the river bed. I still have not captured the clear water just the blur of its speed distorting the view of the river bed. Is it any nearer to capturing the invisible than wind blowing through  leaves? Is capturing the shadows of the currents passing over the rocks any nearer or just cat litter paper tomorrow.

About Masham

Masham – originally Maessa’s Ham – probably owed its foundation to the gentle, flood-proof rise on which it stands, near an easily fordable part of the River Ure, together with its proximity to the course of a Roman road and its position on the main route from Wensleydale to York.

The present square with its beautiful Georgian houses was created in the 18th century.  The huge market place would originally have been surrounded by thatched cottages and was the site for annual Sheep Fairs with over 80,000 heads of sheep being sold some years, including animals from the flocks of nearby Fountains and Jervaulx Abbeys.