Here are a few photos from a recent trip up north, on this particular day we went to Holy Island, otherwise known as Lindesfarne, off the Northumberland coast. Dug into the hillside are these extensive lime kilns which according to Wikipedia were built in the 1860s and used until the end of the 19th century.

As soon as I walked through the entrance to these kilns I got my camera out and this made me remember some advice I read once which, to paraphrase, was:

“When you are taking a photograph ask yourself why you decided to take that particular photo? If you are clear on the answer then try and draw the viewer’s attention to that. If you have no clear answer then maybe it is not worth taking the photo.”

If I remember correctly the above advice was in a book by Bruce Barnbaum called The Art of Photography which I can highly recommend. Even if I have wrongly attributed that advice to Bruce I would still recommend that you go and buy his book, it is not cheap but contains a wealth of useful and interesting information.

So with that advice in mind what made me immediately get my camera out of the bag when I first entered the lime kilns was firstly the green colour on the brickwork, secondly the shapes of the arches, and thirdly the pattern of the brickwork itself.

I have done very little post-processing with these shots, although I wanted to draw the viewer’s attention to the green walls I have not increased the saturation or vibrance of these shots with the exception of shot of the vaulted ceiling in which I was emphasising the pattern of the brickwork. In all other photos the colours are as shot.

The only other post-processing I have had to do is clone out my wife who wandered into the shot above!