Photographing Hertfordshire and keeping fit

Seagulls at Little Tring
6th March 2012
For a larger image visit Geograph 2836660 and try using the Zoom.it feature

Several years ago I decided to make a photographic record of the countryside around Tring while walking my daughter's dog Franki and I started to post the pictures on a web site called Geograph, several of which included Franki! 

Nr Hastoe

Ashridge

Marsworth

Aylesbury Canal

     The idea was to record the historic tracks (some of which are so old that they were used to define the County boundary a thousand years ago), the canal (which came to the Tring area in 1797), and the railway (which opened in 1837). I also decided to record any historic buildings on the way. I started to post a connected record of pictures of the Grand Union Canal between Berkhamstead and Leighton Buzzard, with the branches to Wendover and Aylesbury, and the associated reservoirs and this may be followed by starting by looking at the picture of Canal and Reservoir Information - Tring Area. In total I posted over 1500 pictures, mainly of the area around Tring, including parts of the Chiltern Hill and the Vale of Aylesbury that lie in Buckinghamshire.

     In late 2009 Geograph introduced a new feature which made it easier to link groups of pictures - but left me with the problem of whether I should alter what I had already done - especially as I already had a backlog of several thousand pictures to be considered for posting. The result of this dilemma was I stopped posting the pictures - but I have continued taking photographs ever since - so I have a vast backlog  

     Franki died in March 2010 so I took less walks. One of the results was that my doctor became concerned about my increasing weight - so walks are back on the menu, and I have been taking more photographs (and loosing weight!). Some of these pictures have already appeared in this newsletter and the Medieval Field System exposed at Wilstone Reservoir has been one of the most popular posts. 

      As a result I had another look at Geograph as a place to display pictures of the area around Tring and discovered it now allows high resolution images to be stored, as you can see if you look at the Seagull image and select the Zoom.it facility. This makes it a suitable location to store historical record photographs and I will be using it more in future, and adding details of my updates to this blog. 

       You may view all the photographs I have posted on Geograph here and all pictures I post on Geograph are reusable under the terms of this Creative Commons Licence.  (Note that pictures posted before 2012 currently do not have larger images, but I have larger originals and the Geograph images can be updated - so let me know if there are any you want.)