The Lake District

Coniston Sunset (left)

This is probably my favourite photo of all of the photos I've taken and a photo that came out far better than I could ever have imagined.  

One of the most iconic posters of the 80's was of sunrise over an Ullswater jetty by Mel Allen, and it's an image that I know is imprinted in the minds of many photographers when they visit the Lake District, and used as inspiration for thousands of photos.  I'd been looking out for jetties around Coniston all week and had a particular jetty in mind towards the north end of the lake however a visit earlier in the week left me having doubts that I'd found the right jetty.  After a few disappointing sunsets or late nights away from base, it wasn't until the last night of the holiday that I got a chance to attempt my sunset picture, and sure enough I'd picked the wrong pier!  Panic is not condusive to good photography, but I knew that if I wanted even a stab at a pier sunset I'd have to move!  I made the most creative use of the road that I could as I zipped back down the lake....

I'd seen this pier on the journey up the lake, but parking and access wasn't great and the picture in my head didn't have a boat in it!  but it was pointing in a pleasing direction....  I grabbed my kit, and may literally have run down to the jetty.  Obviously by this point I'd missed sunset, but the sky was starting to come alive as I set up and composed both my colour D7100 and my IR D90 on seperate tripods.  Given my lack of grad filters, bracketing exposures was my best chance at getting an image, or combination of images, I could work with, and the view here gave me a lot to work with, which was great!  

This image is an HDR coomposite of 4 images, exposed for different parts of the scene and then combined.  It can be a very destinctive technique but can easily be overdone (usually on purpose, sometimes not...!) - it's something I've used very occasionally - usually experimentally - to try to make the best of poor lighting conditions, compensate for a lack of filters or just for fun to see what it can do!  I'll blog about this sometime - even I find it a marmite technique, but it IS interesting!  However for this image I needed the blend to be subtle and natural to compensate for my lack of grad filters, rather than give an even exposure across all the elements of the scene, and I think it works!  I have since gone back and picked one of the 4 images and processed that on its own - and actually got similar results!  So all in all, I'm chuffed to bits with the outcome!

Colwith Force Panorama (right)

I'm a sucker for dreamy waterfalls, and the Lake District is stuffed full of them!  Up to this point in the week though, I'd been a bit disappointed with the photos I'd taken.  As I metioned above, I didn't have grad filters, so getting a usable exposure from a single image during the day was nearly impossible and the pressure to hurry up meant I was rushing things - never good - so didn't get a chance to, or forgot to compensate for my lack of grads by bracketing my photos.  My 2 biggest faults when it comes to photography are laziness and rushing things!

After a nice meal at Wainwrights' Inn in Langdale, we'd decided to take a drive from Great Langdale back over the hill to Little Langdale past Blea Tarn.  It's a beautiful drive but of course one of the problems with driving is that you're travelling too fast or concentrating too hard on the narrow roads to appreciate the view or stop!  Fortunately the road widened and took us straight past Colwith Force.  

The sun had set by the time I'd set up, but on this occasion the lower light levels helped create the shot.  To get the correct exposure, I had to reduce the shutter speed, and a slow shutter speed is what creates the dreamy blurred waterfall effect!  Combined with the polarising filter on the lens to darken the water and boost the foliage, my exposures were running to around 13 seconds!  This panorama is made up of 4 such images.

Little Langdame in Infrared (left)

This was our last full day in the Lake District and a perfect day for a long dog walk and a spot of geocaching.  We planned a circular walk from Tilberthwaite via the lower valley walk to Little Langdale, and then returning back over the hill, taking in a LOT of geocaches on the way, meaning lots of stops and lots of opportunities for me to take photos!  Yey!   This is an area defined by old slate quarries and spoil heaps (the biggest of which is Cathedral Quarries and Cavern, just to the left of this photo) and slate buildings and structures, such as Slater Bridge (foreground), a well worn slate packhorse brige built in the 17th century to access the quarries.

Another image that defines the Lake District for me is of craggy mountains, dramatic skies and sun dappled slopes, and this was clearly the perfect day and the perfect location!  The twist here, of course, is that I'm using an Infrared camera to capture it!  The contrast between light and shade is more marked than would be the case in a traditional black and white image, with less reflected IR light in the shadows, but also further contrasted with the darkness of the slate and the water, picking out the deatail in the landscape.  I do, of course, have colour versions of this picture which are equally dramatic but perhaps a bit more conventional!