Chesterton Windmill Photography

Chesterton Windmill is a 17th-century cylindric stone tower windmill with an arched base, located outside the village of Chesterton, Warwickshire. It is a Grade I listed building and a striking landmark in South-East Warwickshire.

The rain, once it starts it seems to go on forever, the dark clouds are so thick and heavy that they hang low in the sky. The wind gusts and blows, the rain persists in squalls and sweeping walls of wetness that dampens even the most enthusiastic of photographers, these are the conditions that Mark and I enjoyed as we pulled up outside the local and popular attraction of Chesterton Windmill, Nr. Leamington Spa, UK

Photography frustrations

Looking at the weather forecast only a few hours before suggested the chance of rain, but with scattered showers and breaks of clear air, that would lend itself to photographing the Milky Way or at least part of it with the windmill making for a stunning foreground interest, but this wasn't the case. In the car, we sat in the darkness with the rain pelting down, the hypnotic drone of rain fall on the car roof accompanied our gazing looks as we wiped our breath off the glass, trying to make out some detail, from the darkness outside, perhaps a break in the cloud, a hint of morning light or even a glimmer of hope. The weather was so far removed from what was forecast we even discussed for a moment, just driving back home, and not even taking the cameras out of the bag, but we persisted a little while. 

With time, the dawn started to break and our location revealed itself, the rain eased to an on off cycle of deluge and clam. We took our chances, got the cameras and made best of what we had. A quick dash though the field we took shelter under the arches of the windmill, it, in itself at such close proximity has some interesting compositions, however, I was longing for the long distance shot, thankfully on our return back to the car I managed to get a moment of relative dryness from the elements to shoot back towards the windmill before we called it a morning and headed for the nearest McDonalds for breakfast!

UPDATE June 2020

Looking out of the window for the past few days seems like the mini heat wave from just over a week ago is a long and distant memory. Missing the heat and balmy summer nights already so with this in mind I popped over to Chesterton Windmill to enjoy a spot of late evening light and to also meet up with old friends and new.
Despite the setting sun being truly spectacular, the evening astro test shots were somewhat spoilt by a rather rude individual and incoming cloud. The saving grace however was that I got to gauge the level of light pollution and to see if a future visit on shorter days would be worth it...

• Image Title: UPDATE 2020: Chesterton Windmill & The Fae
• Pentax K-1 Camera used:
• Pentax DFA 28-105mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens used:
• 105mm Focal length:
• f/5.6 Aperture:
• 1/160 Exposure time:
• 100 ISO:

• Image Title: The Ass-tronomer Royal
• Pentax K-1 Camera used:
• Pentax DFA 15-30mm f/2.8 Lens used:
• 20mm Focal length:
• f/2.8 Aperture:
• 10 Sec Exposure time:
• 1600 ISO: