The Angel of the North

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may remember that we got a very quick glimpse of the Angel of the North when driving north along the A1 on our honeymoon last year. Well, just over a year later and I've finally gotten to have a proper look at Britain's largest sculpture.

Bryony had an exam in Gateshead at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which is just over two miles from the Angel of the North. I went to Gateshead with her to lend moral support but for the three hours she was in the exam I was free to walk around, so I walked the two and a bit miles to see the Angel of the North.

Part way down the hill from the hospital I turned a corner in a housing estate and suddenly the view opened up and there was the sculpture. I quickly lost sight of it again though as I dropped down the hill and in amongst the houses you can see.

It's actually quite difficult to get good photos because of its size. It's large and because of roads and trees it is hard to get far enough away from it. I also struggled with the light, as it was quite a bright day so the auto setting on the camera left me with a very dark sculpture where you couldn't see any real details. In the end I had to resort to manual settings which worked OK, but the last two pictures are actually three exposures stacked on top of each other so that I could get detail in the sky and on the sculpture. Quite a lot of work just to take a couple of photos!