White Horse of Kilburn

The destination is around 1hr 10mins from where I currently live, however, once in the boundary of York only around 30 minutes’ drive away. I had planned to do all my photography trips on Saturdays, dependent on the weather, with downloading and editing the images done on Sundays. This is working out well for me so far (from a workflow pattern and time management perspective) and if there is rain or I complete all the required images planned on location, I can use Saturdays for any still life shoots I need to do. The weather was forecast to be sunny and cloudy so I knew that if I set off late morning, I could get more chance of some sun as the day warmed up. I had one specific shot in my mind and had done some more research on the Internet prior to the journey. My memory from when I visited the places many years ago (in 1990s) was that the village of Kilburn was very picturesque with a pub and quaint cottages and that there was some sort of event on at the time, where children were trying to race (or capture) plastic ducks in a small stream or pond in the middle of the village. I recall seeing the white horse of Kilburn from a short distance away, but then also remember watching the gliders from the top of the hill. My memory was vague and it sometimes annoys me that mobile phones were not invented sooner, as, even though I had been just studying photography not long beforehand, I never took my camera out with me if going for a trip somewhere. I mostly only took my camera out to take photos for my project that I was studying for, or for special occasions like holidays, family gatherings or Christmas. So I only had my memory of the horse in my mind to go on, from over 20 years ago and never being back again since. I had carefully plotted out the route, via Google Maps, Street View and looked at some forums on the best place to view it from. I had also looked at car parks, facilities, mileage, time, weather and included a paper-map as I do not have wifi, although I do have a Sat Nav which got me there. I chose to park in the car park directly underneath the horse as this was the nearest spot and initially where I thought I needed to be. On arrival, this car park only had about 30 spaces for cars including an ice-cream van, however, I did get a spot but would probably need to arrive a little earlier next time if I ever come back to do the full walk. I knew I had one photo in mind, and as I arrived and surveyed the area, I recalled that on one forum, someone had posted that the best place to see the white horse was from a spot in the village. As I was driving to the location, I was very impressed that I could see the white horse when I was several miles away, although it was not a good spot to stop and photograph it (on a busy A road). I was just focussed on driving to the car park, yet I should have been more open to stopping when appropriate if there was a view which looked suitable. Anyway, on arriving at my destination, I took in the site and realised I was far too close to the horse (literally about 50 metres away), but as I was there, decided to go up some steep steps to the top of the hill and have a look around anyway. The steps were a challenge to get up (especially with a camera and tripod) and there was a young lad with a collie dog who was also struggling to get up the steps as they were so narrow and uneven with inconsistent spacing in between. As I kept pausing and gasping for air, someone waiting to come down the steps remarked that she really like my tee-shirt and I had to smile and thank her through my breathing struggles. Anyway, eventually got to the top and could see that the horse had had a facelift as I had read about on the Internet, so it was quite bright white now and much better from a photographic perspective. The view from the top was quite spectacular and reminded me of the places I had gone to last year when touring around the Yorkshire Dales. I took some photos of the view, but not in infra-red, so I must remember to take infra-red as well as regular images, just in case. It is probably because I knew I had no intention of using these images in my book, but as I was there anyway, it would have been worth spending a bit more time on the photo opportunities. I was worried about the weather too, because there was not as much sun as I had hoped for and the clouds were coming thick and fast so I did feel the pressure of a deadline regarding opportunities to get full sun, especially as the camera needs to be on a slow shutter speed of around 30 seconds, so it is likely the sun will go behind a cloud at some point during the photograph. Anyway, I decided to find a better location immediately and drove back through the village. As I was approaching the village sign of Kilburn on an old stone wheel, I saw the white horse in my rear-view mirror and just on the grass verge was a space which was flat and the perfect size and place to park up. When I got out, I knew I had found a good location. I had researched some images on the internet and there was one I had found taken circa 1950s of a woman on a gate with the horse in the distance and I would like to have captured this similar location.

I wish I had taken the image with me to try and source it a little more, however, I realised that the image must have been taken from a gate inside one of the fields so as I didn’t have the photo and I felt it would be unethical to trespass into the fields on this occasion (there was a lot of hedging and no natural pathway) I took the shot from the location I had sourced and was really happy with the outcome, especially as it captured the tiny cottage in the mid-distance which gave some perspective on how large the white horse carving really is. I actually think this is my favourite shot so far and the sun came out for just long enough.