The cloud was forecast to clear about an hour before sunset as a high pressure system rolled-in.  My hope was that it wouldn't completely clear leaving some nice thin clouds and making for a colourful sunset.  So, after arriving at my accommodation, I sat and considered a plan for the evening.  Should I try Feather Tor, Great Staple Tor or even Great Mis Tor?  They are all open to the West and low-angled evening light.  Was the cloud going to clear sufficiently to make a longer walk-in worthwhile?

By the last day of my recent trip to Dartmoor, the endless blue skies were starting to get tiresome.  O' for a few wisps of cloud and some drama!  Spring was definitely announcing its imminent arrival tho.  By day it was tee-shirt weather but once the sun set it was full-on winter duvet weather :-)  It felt somewhat silly leaving the truck in warm sunshine but packing boots and winter clothing!

As readers will know from the preceding post I've been exploring the Dartmoor National Park again ;-) There is an area to the South and West of Princetown bounded by Leedon Tor, Ingra Tor and King's Tor that contains the old railway and some quarries.  This area looked interesting on the map but I was hesitant as its higher than most of the surrounding moor and the tor's didn't, on the map, look especially interesting.

At the end of February a large high pressure system parked itself over the UK for a few days giving some stable, sunny weather.  Hopefully it was the first of many yet to come but since then its been wet and very, very windy - but it is winter.  Hopefully, the weather will break soon as I found one of my bins flying down the road the other day and tonight, I note, its gone completely - not a sign of it anywhere...

My trusty go-to lens for the last few years has been a Zeiss ZE 21mm f/2.8 T* Distagon and in many cases this is still true.  Its a joy to work with as focusing is smooth, easy and importantly accurate - even wearing big gloves.  But as I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm shooting more panoramic's with a 50mm lens.   A few years ago I purchased a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM for some street photography on a Paris trip.

On my first visit to Dartmoor I recall thinking it was boring open moorland with nothing to make a good photograph apart from the odd rocky Tor!  Well, that was quite some time ago and since then I've grown to really appreciate its shapes, subtle colours and rugged looks.  Dartmoor is, I guess, one of those places that grows on you. :-)  Nowadays its one of my favourite places in England.

A short while ago we had the first dusting of winter snow over Dartmoor.  The weather forecast had promised a couple of days of cold temperatures with a strong likelihood of snow.   That was all the justification I needed to throw the tent in the truck and head towards Princetown with little planning.

Where has this year gone?  Winter is as easy as it gets for wilderness landscape photography; sunrise is at 08:14 and sunset at 16:03 where I live.  Its possible to have a late start and still be on location in plenty of time for the sunrise :-)  Unfortunately, the weather isn't playing ball tho, its warm with boring overcast skies.  Anyway, its provided the opportunity to overhaul my workflow, tools and to catch-up on some much overdue processing.

Looking at this image you could be forgiven for thinking it was a warm summers evening.  How wrong that would be!  I took this only recently (November 2017).  There was a 20 to 25MPH wind blowing, the air temperature was about 3 degrees Celsius and the afternoon had been pretty much dominated by very heavy dark clouds and rain showers.

Black Tor on Dartmoor lies just South of Princetown on the B3212.  It's not a large Tor, in fact, it's a rather small, non-descript Tor easily missed as its set back off the road just over the brow of a hill.  It's on a rise and stands just a little higher than the surrounding landscape so offers some nice views.