Cosgrove Canal Festival

Cosgrove Canal Festival

July 2019

Cosgrove Canal Festival is one of those landmark events in our annual calendar.

Cosgrove canal scene

Cosgrove crowds

Whist we don't want to become a slave to a "circuit" of events, there is something to be said for having some regular fixtures in the calendar. Cosgrove represents the kick off event of our Grand Union season, a month of busyness as we travel back and forth in the Milton Keynes area, also attending Linslade and Blisworth Festivals, all within a four week period. This frenetic activity also marks the end of our two months of laid back wandering and also the start of the wild fruit picking season, so from now on it all go, go, go.

Boat decorations

Cosgrove Festival is run by the Buckingham Canal Society, raising money and awareness for their ongoing canal restoration activity. In some ways its one of the smaller events with limited activity away from the towpath, but we seem to have built a committed and enthusiastic following and have repeat customers coming back year after year. This event proved a little unusual because unlike many other traders, we usually find that the Saturdays are busier and the Sundays quieter, but this year it was the reverse.

I havn't posted for a while because we havn't moved a lot, and we spent nearly a week away from the boats, first at home making masses and masses of Strawberry based jams and then travelling to Norfolk to attend to family matters. I did take the opportunity to make a Canal Hunter video of the North Walsham and Dilham Canal, but that will have to wait till I can access our home broadband to upload what is a very substantial file.

I like to get some photos of the canal events we attend, but so often it is really busy and I never get an opportunity. Whilst it was very full on all Sunday, the crowds thinned after 3.00pm and I grasped the moment. Like many photographers, I find myself becoming over reliant on the automatic settings but having watched a few YouTube videos recently, I was inspired to play with depth of field using the aperture priority setting. You probably wont notice the difference, but it was interesting to use some very low f stops alongside the automatic settings and seeing the difference. My plan is to be more adventurous with the manual settings and see what can be achieved.

Because depth of field is particularly useful with portraits there are rather more images of Roving Traders than usual.