Literally just up the road from the Bluebell Railway is Sheffield Park and Gardens, another National Trust property full of beautiful gardens and grounds to wander through, or let a child run through gaily.
Our first visit was in April 2022. Initially we explored the outskirts, not going into the main area but instead going for a walk in the grounds. This was quite nice: there were no people, and you could hear the sound of the steam trains at Sheffield Park Station in the background. We had a picnic by the river, which if I’m reading my maps correctly is the River Ouse.
Being 2022, I was still shooting with my EOS 60D, and the 24-105mm f/4 L lens. Also, being late April, we were slap in the middle of bluebell season, so of course I found a few batches to take pictures of.
As we explored the wider area, we came across some wooded areas, still full of bluebells.
There were some white plants too. Snowdrops, perhaps? I have no idea.
We kept exploring, and soon found a wet bit.
By the waterside, there were some pretty and colourful flowers.
If you’ve read my inter-photo waffle before you’ll know I am quite partial to the textures of any well-weathered surfaces. This body of water had a dam and drainage system of some sort, allowing the water to overflow into another nearby lake. Part of the drainage system meant that there was this big chunk of metal sticking out of the ground for some reason.
Keeping with the theme of weathered textures, as we wandered we came across a locked gate, which contained some of them.
We eventually got close enough to some flowers to photograph them. The colours were intense.
A couple of days later we came back, and this time went into the main National Trust area for a wander. It was rather photogenic, especially because on this day, the sun was out.
As you can see, I was still in the habit of closing up the aperture to f/8 or thereabouts for landscape photography. It may actually be something learned that has properly started to stick.
Despite being taken a couple of years ago, this photo was edited relatively recently and so I am once again making use of some Lightroom presets. I found one that enhanced the green of the foliage and the blue of the sky, and pulled the highlights of the sky back down. In quite a few of these shots I may also have made use of Lightroom’s AI masking to create a mask of the sky and lower the exposure, creating a faux HDR effect.
Overlooking the gardens is Sheffield Park House, which is still privately owned and not park of the National Trust property, but is nevertheless still an imposing sight.
The trees planted throughout the estate were apparently picked for their autumnal colour, which apparently meant that they still looked lovely in the spring.
As we walked I got a different angle on the House, and used another preset to bring out some of the residual yellows, reds and browns in the flora.
It’s at this point that we wander idly into another debate about the degree of processing I’m doing to these images. One preset I found had the result of making the next image look like a watercolour, and frankly I love that look and think it suits the image perfectly. But I can see why anyone would say it’s all a bit too much and no longer looks photorealistic.
Almost on a whim I did try a HDR exposure. As you can see if you compare it to the other images, I’m not sure it was worth the effort. It’s something that I now tend to only break out in more intense light.
In fact, if you look at the non-HDR shot below, processed in the same way as a couple of images up, it is arguably the better shot, at least to my taste.
The colours on this day were great. This next shot was in the shadows a bit so the exposure was a bit wonky but I was able to bring it back – apart from the sky which is still blown out. But the colours have come to life nicely.
We walked around the lake a little more, and got a bit closer to the bridge separating the lake from the next body of water over. The preset I used to edit the picture also brought out the colour of the bridge as much as the colours of the flora.
We walked towards the bridge. On the way there was a reflective sphere which presented the opportunity for a slightly unusual selfie.
The view from the bridge was fantastic, helped by the relatively smooth water. Here we are looking away from the lake we’ve been walking around so far.
And here we are looking in the other direction, towards Sheffield Park House.
On the edge of the lake – and I’ve been assuming all along that it’s big enough to be called a lake and not just a pond or puddle or whatnot, rather than actually looking it up or anything – we’d often see birds. Most of the time it was pigeons or seagulls, but this time we encountered a pheasant pecking about.
There were also, to end this on an appropriately arboreal note, a few interesting trees in the Gardens. This is one of the ones that caught my eye, right towards the end of our visit.
And that was our first (and technically second) visit to Sheffield Park and Gardens. I would eventually return here for the flora, and not the train station just up the road – but that’s another post for another time.