In Search of Heather - Part 2

In my last blog post I talked about my search for a compelling photograph of the heather around the Haytor area of Dartmoor National Park. As I said in that blog post it was a little early in the heather season to get a good photograph.

Despite that I decided to head out the following morning, but this time to Hookney Tor. Even within the borders of Dartmoor, different areas reach their heather peak at various times so it was a reasonable assumption that a change of location could yield better results.

Arriving at Hookney Tor I found myself a little lost. Creatively speaking that is. Though I've visited Hookney Tor a few times, I'd never taken the time to properly photograph it. There were patches of heather, but I found it difficult to balance the clumps of heather with the tor. It didn't help that it was cloudy, and the landscape looked a bit flat.

I decided that Hookney Tor wasn't working for me, so I opted to photograph a location that I had shot before, Grimspound. I first discovered Grimspound when I visited it in Episode 2 of Discovering Dartmoor. The photograph that I captured during that episode also had heather in it, so there was a danger of capturing the same photograph, but it was my best option.

**Grimspound Sunrise #2, Dartmoor National Park** - Nikon Z8, Nikkor Z 14-30 f/4 S at 21mm, f/13, 1/200 sec at ISO 640.

Grimspound is one of Dartmoor National Parks most important bronze age sites, but it's best photographed from the path leading down from Hookney Tor. I was keen not to repeat the same composition, but despite hunting around for a better one, I kept returning to the same view. However, while the composition might be similar to my first visit during Discovering Dartmoor, the conditions were different, and dare I say better.

**Grimspound Sunrise #1, Dartmoor National Park** - Nikon Z8, Nikkor Z 14-30 f/4 S at 14mm, f/13, 1/25 sec at ISO 64.

The heather isn't as prominent in the photograph as I might like, but the light coming in from the side is lovely thanks to some diffusion from the clearing cloud. I took two variations of the composition, just changing my position slightly. I'm not sure which one I prefer.

So, my search for a compelling photograph of the heather on Dartmoor continues, but my morning at Hookney Tor and Grimspound was time well spent.