Lake District March 2022 Part 1

I’ve been going to the Lake District for photography for just over 2 years. My first ever workshop was in January 2020, with Chris Sale, and I’ve been back quite a few times since. I think it’s fair to say that my photography has a long way to go, but reflecting on this weekends 121 I really do feel like I’ve come a long way to. I hope you agree. When I booked onto this latest 121 Chris and I spoke about objectives for the sessions, and my main goal was to get up high. This meant that the other parts of the 121 over the weekend would be in rather easier to access parts of the lakes, as the climb up to the Nan Field Pass is quite a hike for someone my age with a big camera bag. So we agreed that the first session would be around the Keswick area, Ashness Woods, Ashness Bridge and maybe the Centennial Stones. Session two would be na Bield Pass and Carter Fell, and session three would be Lowther Castle and Estate. This is the story and images of the first session.

Ashness Woods

There were two main reasons for going into Ashness Woods, firstly too try to get my eye in, as it was a week or so since my last trip out with the camera. The second being to take me out of my comfort zone and do some woodland photography. Boy was I out of my comfort zone.

I find shooting in the woods and forests a real challenge. How to find a composition in all the mass of trees and branches, all fighting for attention and all getting in the way of each other. Look for shapes and groups of shapes that form a natural grouping was the advice from Chris. I did find a few groups of trees and I did shoot a few images of groups of trees and indeed got the 70 to 180mm f2.8 lens on to try to isolate elements of the woodland.

Perceived wisdom is that the best images in woodlands and forests is shot when there is mist around. This isolates the subject trees and takes away the distractions that can draw the eye. This is mainly because the mist hides the background, plus it gives a element of mystery to the image. So what do you do when there’s no mist? Well one hypothesis that Chris suggested is that I should shoot woodland scenes that have a background, that can be seen to a degree. The idea being that this adds depth to the image. So the image you see here is very much a work in progress but the swipe through the background of the image of the River Derwent actually adds to the overall feel of the image. As I said this is work in progress and the eagle eyed amongst you will spy a car in the very boot middle of the image, a crop would resolve it but this is the image uncrossed with only a few Lightroom edits to the raw file.This is most definitely food for thought. This was shot with my Sony Alpha 7IV, with the Tamron 70 to 180mm f2.8 lens. This is at 169mm focal range at f11, with a shutter speed of 1/30 of a second, ISO 100.

Ashness Bridge

A short drive back down the road and we pulled into the car park at Strutta Wood. This was literally 100 metres from the Ashness Bridge. I photographed the bridge from both sides at various angles, trying very hard to not get my feet too wet. This is one of the images I took from above the bridge.

I like that you can see the outline of the fells in the background of this image. It was a lovely sunny day so there was some nice light on the fell sides, as you can see on both sides just beyond the bridge. The direction of the water along with the shape of the rocks all lead the eye down towards the bridge. This image was taken with my Sony 24 to 105mm f4 G lens, at 24mm, with aperture at f11.

The image above was taken below the level of the bridge. There is a small building just beyond the bridge but the angle and slope of the land wouldn’t allow me to include this in the image. If I had gone back far enough maybe I could have got both things in the frame but they would be far to small to have the impact required.I do like how you can see water running down the beck (I think its a beck) on both sides of the bridge in this image.I really do love this type of stone built bridge. It was barely wide enough to get my car over, and I was worried I’d scratch it but thankfully that wasn’t the case. This really is a nice place to visit and I will be back to explore the surrounding areas.

Tewet Tarn

Chris and I had discussed trying to capture the Centennial Stone on the edge of Derwentwater, but as we approached it became clear that the stone wasn’t covered by water, and therefore wasn’t worth trying to take any images. I guess at that point I was about to suggest we call it a day but lots of local knowledge from Chris suggested we try the Castlerigg Stone Circle, and failing that Tweet Tarn. As anticipated the stone circle had far too many visitors around it, so we headed off towards Tewet Tarn.

This type of occasion shows the benefit of years of research and visits from a local. Chris knew the places to part and the best route up, and indeed how to avoid getting our feet muddy by avoiding the really boggy sections of the edge of the tarn. I love how the light illuminates the wall, the tarn, fields and the fells. This was 6pm, and very close to sunset, so we had to hurry to get some images that would be worthy of such great light. Low Rigg really does look good as the background element in this image. With the wall and tarn adding foreground and mid ground interest, to what I think is a lovely image of a lovely scene.

Dotted around he landscape you find these types of rocks. I guess they have been here for thousands of years and the landscape has engulfed them over that time. However, they have got here they do make for some lovely leading lines and subjects for an image, as you can see from this image. They add some lovely textures and colours to the image as well as being a great subject and leading line. The fell in the background (Blencathra I think) looks great bathed in the lovely early evening sunlight. This again was shot with my Sony Alpha 7IV, with the 24 to 105mm f4 G lens, and I didn’t use a filter of any kind in any of the locations on Friday.

I was slowly packing away my gear, content we’d had a great afternoon and early evening out, when Chris asked me to hurry up. He knew of two other possible shots that I could get before the sun actually set behind the mountains. The image above is taken right by the side of Tewet Tarn, and uses some of the lovely reads as foreground. There are a few layers in this image as well as as a lovely glow from the sun almost out of sight behind the fell, there are even a couple of reflections, but these aren’t the best as the tarn wasn’t perfectly still at that time.

The image above was taken maybe 20 feet away from the previous image. Slightly further up the bank into a bit of higher ground, and we could see the stones in the water, almost fitting into the gap created by the reflection of the mountain in the tarn. I’m not overly thrilled with the scrubbing grass in the bottom right hand corner but I thought it was an image worth sharing. This was the last image of Friday evening, of a great 121 session with Chris.

Chris and I had set the objectives of getting my eye in as well as getting me out of my comfort zone. I think we achieved both of those objectives in the 4 hours that Friday afternoon. I think you’ll agree that I got some decent images as well as seeing some locations I’ve not seen before. A great session. Thanks Chris.