Cliveden National Trust in photos

In my head, it’s always sunny at Cliveden. Not so much a comment on the often gilded lives of the inhabitants but the fact that I only seem to visit Cliveden National Trust garden and grounds when the sky is blue.

Last time was almost exactly a year ago, for the Easter Egg hunt. Then on Saturday, the sun came out after a grey and chilly week so I seized the opportunity to get outdoors with Minnie – and take some more photos with my new camera.

The blue skies and sunshine, not to mention the flowers in bloom at Cliveden National Trust seemed a perfect opportunity to make the most of some of the filters and fun settings.

As with most people, I’ve settled on a few of my favourite settings for our days out (although I’m still waiting for a chance to use the ‘beach’ setting).

The sport setting to capture my daughter sprinting around, aperture priority to make the most of the good light, colour pop and the colour select options for some fun finishes, and the flower setting… well, because Cliveden in spring equals lots of gorgeous flowers.

The only edits have been resizing the images (so you don’t have to wait half an hour for huge file sizes) and a small amount of cropping (mostly to cut out other people). The rest is all camera (and me).

From the storybook den playground to the formal gardens, past the fountain (wrapped up and not yet turned on, sadly) and the beautiful house itself, along the wooded slopes above the river and to the water garden, we even found our way in to the centre of the maze (and out again, which is trickier).

There was a murder mystery hunt going on with clues dotted all over the place but we were happy to wander together, taking our photos, making up stories, playing hide and seek, giggling and soaking up some long-awaited sunshine.

My daughter needed little encouragement to race around the grounds, rolling down one of the grassy slopes and tearing along the terrace overlooking the formal gardens below as I played with the sport setting. I’m not saying my hour’s lie-in on Mother’s Day was a direct result, but it was a happy coincidence…

There’s something I love about a bright pop of red against a monochrome background – I had fun trying the single colour setting with post boxes and doubledecker buses earlier in the week, but found a few fun spots in the playground to try it here too.

And discovered daffodils (among other flowers) work nicely for the yellow colour select option on the camera as well (purple was less successful).

Frankly, the blue sky didn’t really need any help from filters during our visit. Or the bright shades of the flowers. But it’s fun to get a super-saturated effect sometimes with the colour pop setting, or bump up the saturation if the light is bleaching it – it’s easy to tip into artificially primary shades at times, but it can really bring out the depth too.

And while focus and depth of field is something that’s not quite as consistent as I’d like, the camera does get some lovely crisp shots and a satisfyingly blurred background too – including the flower setting.

There might not have been bunnies and chocolate eggs this time, but there was a salted caramel chocolate mousse in the Orangery restaurant for after lunch – and best of all, no aching neck from carrying a DSLR for five hours either…

We returned to Cliveden after lockdown to discover yet another sunny day out

PIN FOR LATER: CLIVEDEN NATIONAL TRUST IN PHOTOS

Images copyright MummyTravels

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