Downton Abbey Part 1

As promised, this is a Downton Abbey weekend on this blog for all the fans of the hit TV show. As I have stressed before, I have never watched it myself but I do live a 5 minute drive away from the real downton abbey, which is of course Highclere Castle. This gives me easy access to take pictures of this fabulous country house. I say 'easy access' but that's not strictly true, Highclere Castle is closed to visitors for most of the year and getting close to it at other times is anything but easy. Hence, I have taken landscape shots of the castle before such as this (click for link). The picture you see today was taken while I was at the Battle Proms event last year, which led me to be able to get closer to the castle than ever before. This is an HDR image, made of 3 different exposures.

The landscape shot I linked to in the last paragraph is one of my most popular pictures. It has actually sold quite well in the past and is my second most viewed picture on Flickr. I know this is partly because people have linked to it on Downton Abbey blog sites, which I am most grateful for. That is one of the reasons I wanted to do this Downton Abbey weekend, to give fans of the show a couple of great (and large) views of the building that has once again become culturally significant. Feel free to use this on blogs and websites, the only thing I ask is that you link back to this site. As it suggests from the title, this is part 1 of a double bill (to get a TV pun in there), tomorrow's picture will be a none-HDR shot but one I think is better than this one and that I hope you'll agree. Until tomorrow.....

DID YOU KNOW: The architect of Highclere Castle, Sir Charles Barry, was also the architect of a small group of buildings in London called the Houses of Parliament.