Elter Water

Last month I visited the Lake District, staying in the Great Langdale valley.  The weather was pretty good for December, so there were some good opportunities for photography!

Early on in our visit, we went for a short walk up Loughrigg Fell.  This circular route from Elterwater (the village) gives a great view of Grasmere on the way up, and the view in the picture above from the top of the ridge, looking in the opposite direction back towards Elter Water (the lake.)

Later on we set out on a more adventurous walk, this time climbing the Langdale Pikes (Harrison Stickle, Pike of Stickle, Loft Crag and Pavey Ark.)  We started the main walk at the New Dungeon Gill Hotel, but first had to walk the couple of miles to get there from where we were staying near the village of Chapel Stile (right).

Once we passed the hotel, the path quickly became steep as we climbed out of the valley and made our way up to the first summit of the day, Loft Crag.  From here, we made our way in the direction of the Pike of Stickle (below) but decided to leave that summit for another day as time was getting short.

Pike of Stickle

The Langdale Pikes have quite a mountainous appearance, but at the top between the summits is a large open flat area of moorland.  This was covered in snow, so it made crossing it a slow task!  It was worth the effort however, as reaching the next summit of Harrison Pike rewarded us with an excellent view all the way to Windermere and beyond.  This summit didn’t provide a particularly good foreground though, so it wasn’t until the next summit, Pavey Ark, that I got a picture of the view I was pleased with (below.)

View from Pavey Ark

From here, it was a steep descent down to Stickle Tarn and then another steep descent following the stream down Stickle Ghyll before arriving back at the New Dungeon Gill Hotel for a well earned hot chocolate in the bar!

Finally, near the end of our stay we went for a short walk by the shore of Thirlmere, a lake I’d not visited before which is halfway between Ambleside and Keswick.  This lake sits in the shadow of Helvellyn, which can be seen in the picture to the right. This one didn’t make the cut for the gallery – I think it’s a decent composition, but the ice receding around the edges of the lake makes it a bit messy – I think this is one I’ll have another go at next time.

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Early on in the year, I visited Delapré Abbey to capture the bluebells in the surrounding woodland.  I also had another chance to visit Snowdon, the third photo below was taken on the path up the mountain.

This summer I spent a couple of weeks travelling round the incredible country of Iceland.  For most of the trip the weather wasn’t very helpful for photography, but on a couple of occasions the lighting was perfect, and I was able to get the shots I’d hoped for.

Gullfoss

Sejlandafoss and Detifoss

Goðafoss

Iceland has a truly remarkable landscape, which I can recommend to any landscape photographer, but also a fascinating culture and history.  Hopefully I’ll be able to return some time soon to experience more of the country, and to get some more photographs!

To finish this round up, here is a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge in California, taken last September.

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I’ve been catching up with processing of some shots from the last year, and the results are now posted in the gallery. Firstly, some shots from the Seven Sisters cliffs in Sussex taken way back last spring.

I also returned to the Brecon Beacons waterfalls last autumn. The colours and atmosphere had been completely transformed by the season, and I was able to get some very different shots to those I’d captured on my previous visit.

Finally, I’ve also added an online shop facility to the website. Prints can now be ordered through their individual pages in the gallery.

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Durdle Door

Following the evening at the cliffs in Dorset, the next morning I dragged myself out of bed and headed down to Lulworth Cove, hoping for a dramatic sunrise.  As dawn approached and it remained cloudy, it was clear this wasn’t going to happen!  After a brief exploration of the cove itself, I decided to carry on along the coast to Durdle Door.  This was the first time I’d visited the site, but I was already very familiar with the rock formation as it’s a very popular subject for photographers.

I made my way halfway down the steps to the beach, where I took the above shot showing the view across the bay.  A polarising filter and longer exposures helped to bring out the colour in the somewhat dull morning.  After taking the wide, often seen shot, I moved down on the beach to get a shot along in the opposite direction from the door, and a close up of the door.

Pulpit Rock

That evening, I headed down to the Isle of Portland, planning on exploring the southerly tip and getting a shot of the Portland Bill lighthouse.  This again didn’t turn out as I’d planned.  As well as it being quite crowded, I couldn’t find a composition with the lighthouse which I liked, so I turned my attention to the rocks along the coast.  One particular (which I later discovered is known as Pulpit Rock) at the South West point was catching the light perfectly, I was able to get the image below in between getting splashed by waves, and waiting while people clambered all over the rock!

Back to Durdle Door

The following morning, my last on this trip, was spent back at Durdle Door.  This time the weather was completely different, with a pink hue to the sky just before dawn.  I know it’s a cliché but I’m very pleased with the result!

I really enjoyed my brief trip to Dorset, I’m looking forward to exploring (and photographing) much more of the Jurassic Coast!

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The Jurassic Coast in Dorset has long been high on my list of places to photograph, with it’s impressive chalk cliffs and dramatic natural features.  So last weekend I set off south to capture some images there.

My first destination was the cliffs north of Swanage.  This area contains a number of interesting chalk formations, including the Old Harry Rocks which mark the most easterly edge of the Jurassic Coast.  However, it was the view of the Pinnacles, just to the south of Old Harry, that stood out for me.

I arrived at the cliffs late in the evening and waited until the sun had nearly set, when the sky starts to become darker and more colourful.  Capturing the cliffs in this low light allowed me to use a long exposure time, which created the effect of the sea being almost completely flat and silky in appearance.

The second shot, to the left, was taken from a similar vantage point, but zooming in on the stacks.  This shot really shows off the intense colours a long exposure like this allows you to capture.

There’s great photographic potential from this section of the coast, it would be impossible to make the most of it just in the one evening I spent there, so it’s certainly somewhere I’ll be heading back to when I get the chance.

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I was first inspired to visit Whitby after seeing a picture taken there by one of my favourite photographers, Joe Cornish.  The town, on the Yorkshire coast, is incredibly picturesque and the photographic opportunities are endless.

This photograph was taken on the second evening of my visit, as the sun was setting over the town.  I really liked the distinctive houses I had seen in Joe’s photograph, so I climbed about half way up the famous 199 steps to get a composition including the houses, the steps and the sunset.

The clouds helped to darken the light from the sun, but an ND grad filter was still required to properly balance the exposure.  I used my standard post processing, increasing saturation and contrast, and adding vignetting.

I took many pictures in Whitby, but this stands out as the one that I am most satisfied with.  I feel it does a good job of capturing the look of this iconic town.

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After a brief experiment with WordPress.com, I’ve decided I needed more freedom over the design and functionality of the site, so I’ve moved it over to my new web space at Pixel Internet.  This gives me the ability to use a custom theme with my own tweaks, and I’ve spent the last week or so setting it up with this new theme (Infocus by Webtreats), putting my images up in the gallery and getting it all to look right!  There’s still quite a bit to be done, but so far I’m very pleased with the result!

In other news, Sheffield based painter Graham Clark got in touch with me recently, asking if he could use one of my photos from Whitby as a source for one of his upcoming paintings.  The photo in question is Whitby III, seen at the top of this post.  Judging by his gallery, the result should be great and I’m really looking forward to seeing it!  Here are a few examples of his work:

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Ash playing the Roadmender, Northampton

Adobe have recently released the latest version of their post processing tool Lightroom, which has upgraded noise reduction tools.  I’ve been to a few gigs recently and the low light photographs I took their present the perfect opportunity to try out the new features!  Adobe has a promotional video showing off the features on their website which is pretty impressive, but can it live up to that for my shots?

Noise is often seen in photographs when a high ISO is used, so it affects low light situations like gigs. For these shoots I took along my Fuji F200 compact, it’s much easier to carry with you than an SLR, you can forget you’ve got it and enjoy the show.  Normally compacts have pretty poor low light performance, but thanks to its clever EXR sensor the Fuji was able to produce some pretty impressive results at ISO 1600.  They still weren’t noise free however, which is where Lightroom comes in.

Lightroom can deal with two types of noise, Colour and Luminance.  The Fuji image processing seems to do a good job at keeping colour noise at bay however, so all I have left to deal with is the Luminance.  There are three sliders to control this.  Firstly, the Luminance slider which does the main work of removing the noise.  I zoomed in to 100% on the image then brought this up until the noise had mostly gone.  Next I used the detail slider to make sure that some definition and sharpness was retained in the edges and details.  The final slider, contrast, is for maintaining contrast in particularly noisy photos and didn’t seem to have an effect on this image.  See below for a close up of the how the noise reduction changed the above image.

At this level, the image looks a bit like it’s been turned into a painting.  While this looks a bit odd close up, for web and printing at smaller sizes it seems to work great!  Here are a couple more shots processed in the same way.

Ingrid Michaelson

Mark Knopfler

I don’t think the results have been as much of a dramatic transformation as Adobe showed, but I think they’ve come out pretty well considering they’re from a compact.  Combine this tool with a high end SLR like the Canon 5D MkII and the results will be amazing.

How are you finding Lightroom 3 and the new features?  Drop me a comment and let me know!

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After a bit of a break from photography, last week I dusted off the DSLR and headed over to the Brecon Beacons for a week of exploring and photography.  It was clear I’d been out of the game for a while, as I made some schoolboy errors.  The first of which came early in the week.  After an overcast unispiring day, we headed into the hills near where we were staying for a short walk.  As the weather had been so dull, I didn’t bother taking the camera and, you guessed it, just as the sun was setting, it broke through the clouds and lit up the hills with some incredible light!  It really shows just how quickly conditions can change, and that you should always take a camera with you!

Pen y Fan

The following day we climbed the local mountain, Pen y Fan.  We took the northern route from this photographer’s guide to the area.  While it was a lovely walk, from a photographic point of view I should have left later in the day.  It wasn’t until we were on our way back down in the afternoon that the light became more interesting with more photographic potential, and I was able to capture this shot of the path down.

Waterfall Country

The next day we visited the Waterfall Country, an area of woodland valleys, rivers and plenty of waterfalls.  We followed the route described here, which is a great route to take in everything the region has to offer, but it’s certianly not a short walk and we were exhausted at the end of the day!  The conditions were not perfect for capturing the beauty of the location (it was a very hot day with bright sun) I was still able to capture a couple of shot’s I’m pleased with.

This was an incredible location with huge photographic opportunities, so I’ll certainly be heading back, probably later in the year to capture the autumn colours.  Looking at some of my favourite waterfalls pictures, they’re all shot on overcast days with diffused lighting so I’ll make sure to head back on a cloudy day!

Sigma 10-20mm Lens

For the entire trip I used my new lens, the Sigma 10-20mm wide angle zoom.  I’ve been really impressed with the results I’ve got from it so far, it’s a huge change form the 17-85mm I’m used to and allows so much more to be included in the foreground.  One drawback however is that it isn’t compatible with my current set of filters as you can see from the shot to the right!  As a result, I was left without my usual filters and felt a little lost without them!  I plan on upgrading my filters to get around this, probably to the Lee filters which seem to be the most popular amongst other landscapers.

I’ve seen so many fantastic shots taken with a wide angle like this, I’m very much looking forward to continuing to experiment!

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