Lake District – First October Trip

This last weekend I joined Chris Sale for a weekend of photography in the glorious Lake District. We had a plan (a loose one) to visit a number of locations over Friday night and Saturday morning, how long would depend entirely on the weather.

Friday Evening Galbarrow Park

We started our Friday at Aira Force waterfall, the national trust location not far from Galbarrow Fell. It had been a few weeks since I’d been out with my camera and full kit so was a little rusty. The waterfalls is quite a popular spot with visitors. Whilst there weren’t lots of visitors there were enough for us to have to stop and let them take there photographs of the waterfall, which is entirely fair enough.

I’ve had my Tamron 70 to 180mm f2.8 lens for a while now but not really used it very much. So this first location had added incentive for me, to get back taking landscape images but also use the longer lens whilst taking longer exposures. I have to say I struggle with locations that are “messy”. By that I mean there are lots of branches, leaves and assorted debris that can get in the way of the main subject, which of course is the falls.

I have to say that I’m, not 100% sure about this image, or in fact any I took at the scene. Its hard to define what the subject is other than the water, which is maybe a little to smooth for my liking, and there is lots of foliage etc. It was a good start to the weekend though and it certainly got me eye back in.

Chris and I talked about climbing onto the top of Galbarrow Fell and getting images over Ullswater looking in the direction of Glenriding. We spent a little time following the “Ghyl” that feeds the waterfalls, and the realised that we needed to get our skates on and start the hike up. As we walked Chris suggested that we should maybe hike up to Yew Cragg, which is on the Galbarrow Fell, as there was a cracking location there.

Yew Cragg

It took maybe 40 minutes to hike up from Aura Force to Yew Cragg, with the first section being a little steep and filled with rocks and boulders along the path. It soon settled down and we followed a gentle path up to the viewing point on Yew Cragg.

As you can see from this image there is indeed a great viewing point on Yew Cragg. The problem was that the weather wasn’t really playing ball and was rather flat and cloudy. Now the landscape photographers amongst you will know that patience is a virtue and sometimes you have to wait around to get the shot, which is what we ended up doing.

Chris being the cracking educator that he is, set me off with a drill. The drill entailed me taking multiple exposures at the same focal length, from perfectly exposed on the light meter adjusting the shutter speed until the highlights or shadows clipped. We started at 24mm, then 35mm, then 50mm, then 70mm, and all the way up to 105mm (my lens is a 24 to 105). This would be useful for two main reasons. Firstly, it was a good help to what focal lengths work best for what sorts of scenes, and secondly it would help me to learn how to blend images together in Lightroom using the HDR merge feature. Something I’ve not done before.

The two images featured here from Yew Cragg are both HDR merges, both subsequently edited in Lightroom.

I took multiple exposures at each focal length, adjusting the shutter speed by a stop each time until the image was affected by clipping. Once blended together Lightroom weaves its magic and blends together the best elements of the 3 or 4 images that I’d taken each time. This was repeated in both Landscape and Portrait mode and I hope you agree that the results are pretty good.

Saturday Morning – Raven Cragg

There is only one 5 o’clock in each day and that’s never in the morning for me usually. but to get sunrise shots you have to get up early, and Chris and I set off to Thirlmere Reservoir at 5.30am in search of a decent shot from the top of Raven Cragg. The last time I came to Thirlmere the plan was to climb up Raven Cragg but the weather got the better of us and we stayed on the beach at Thirlmere. Today was different we were going upon Raven Cragg whatever the weather.

I have to say it was a pretty tough and steep hike up with the big bags on our backs but thankfully it’s a short hike in comparison to others. The hike is broken down into 4 stages, with a rest after each one. Good job to as it was hard work getting to the top but boy was it worth it despite the claggy weather.

There is a viewing platform at the top of Raven Cragg (more about that soon) but Chris and I dropped down in front of the platform to get closer to the edge. The two images from this spot give you a sense of the vista with the first images being of Great Howe. That was really the only place all morning where we got any form of light, but I do like the colours and the colours in this images well as the clouds hanging around.

It certainly was a murky old morning but this location is best served by a foreboding image rather than a bright sunny blue sky image. I think you’ll agree that the mist hanging over the fells and dark colours on the fells sides really leads itself to a “brooding”type image. There is a vignette on this image applied in Lightroom which all adds to the sense of foreboding.

I decided that we should head down and go get some breakfast, but before we did that we stopped off at viewing point 2 for Raven Cragg as well as doing a few long exposures on the beach at Thirlmere. I’m not happy with either of the images I took, mainly due to rain on the filters which I couldn’t remove to my satisfaction in either Lightroom or Photoshop.

Derwentwater – Isthmus Bay

Breakfast was lovely in the tHeatre cafe at Keswick, and our final destination for the day before the heavy stuff started to fall was the jetty at Isthmus bay. As we headed off along the path it was obvious that the stare levels on Derwentwater were very high indeed. The path through to the jetty was completely underwater, so much so that we couldn’t walk through. Undeterred we found an alternative route, and finally came around to the boat yard. To my horror the jetty was also completely submerged and not only that the whole beach itself was flooded, there was no approach.

I was starting to think that the photography for the day was over but as I turned around I saw Chris scramble over some tree routes and disappear over onto a small beach that wasn’t entirely flooded. To my great relief there was a place to set up, I could point my camera out across Derwentwater, but best of all there were some wonderfully placed rocks to add foreground interest.

Think you’ll agree that this shot was worth the wet feet and the tension of was my day being over early. It’s as if these rocks had been placed perfectly in this location. Along with the rocks I could see if the shallow water that a firepit had been made and this was just beneath the waters surface. The addition of a polariser to the lens allows you to cut through the surface glare of the water and get a good view of whats below the surface. I really like the mood of this image. So the rain started to fall and we decided to head home for I well earned rest and a hot shower.

It’s been a while but I thought it was about time that I posted another selfie. This time im on the viewing deck at the top of Raven Cragg. This is a superb view and one that is worth every painful step that it took to get top there.