Welland on Saturday

[Gordon Bennett]

Yesterday (28th July) I visited the Welland rally, near the Malvern Hills.

I had a quick look around to see what was there and intended going back to various engines to take photographs. This is what I usually do when I visit any rally. Unfortunately yesterday I had not allowed for the weather gods to do their bit...!

I'm not sure what time the rain started but gosh, did it rain! It seemed to ease for a few minutes - and then came down heavy again. Despite false optimism - comments like "I'm sure it's brightening up..." and "it won't come to anything...", I gave up after a couple of hours and headed for home.

I didn't take many photos at all - below are four from yesterday. The first two were taken in the road making area, before the rain started. Both of these pictures work reasonably well but as an artist I often find I want to move things around and add elements in order to improve the composition. As an artist I can do that fairly easily but with photography it is a tad more difficult!





Picture number three is a shot I took purely as a reference for my artwork but it does work rather well as an image. I would add some fire irons though and some areas of ash on the ground if I were to turn something like this into a pencil drawing.



The last picture was taken in the rain but I couldn't resist the urge to photograph this engine - to my eyes it is a truly fine looking machine. I would guess it dates from around the turn of the century as it has the less common perch bracket - with a spring inside? I don't think I have seen it before - can anyone post more about it...?



With the football - and other sports events, extremely hot weather, a greater fire risk due to the dry conditions - and now this weekend heavy rain, this summer has seen greater challenges than usual to event organizers. I certainly appreciate the efforts of the organizers and engine owners to press on regardless and to stage their event.

Michael

[Phil in Welland]

The rain started about 2.30pm - just as the steam grand parade was due to start!
It continued with varying intensity for about 2 hours, then the sun came out… and the fireworks were, as usual, good.
The Burrell is 2417 Old Duch of 1901, a nicely presented engine.

Phil

[International Steam]

It actually started rather later at nearly 15.00 as the Militaria were running at least 20 minutes late, which was just as well in the circumstances. I held on till around 16.30 and by the time we got near Ross we could see the clouds rolling away. I had no complaints, Friday had been very good and so Saturday was a bit of R&R for this photographer.