Looking into the distance I could make out this tiny arch, I was somewhat aggrieved that I still had the same distance to cover to get to it. At this point, I did think about turning back, I then had a swift harsh word with myself and thought.......... you have come this far Steve! With that thought in my head I picked myself up and carried on.

After what felt like an eternity and many coves I reached some flat area’s of cliff reaching out to sea, so I grabbed an opportunity to wander out to get a view of what little distance was left to reach my goal.

Having looked over the edge of three or so more coves I was happy to have finally come to my subject, the Stac a’ Phris arch in all its glory. The sea was amazing, crashing with such force, it gave me a real respect of the power of nature, it also highlighted how dangerous a place this could be, especially as I was the only person silly enough to be there in these conditions. I said to myself; lets get on with the task at hand and quickly, as I could see the weather was changing and things could be a lot different in a matter of minutes. I stumbled down some rocks on to a rocky outcropped cliff edge to setup as this seemed to be the best angle for my composition. Out came the Camera to start looking at the different compositions and it wasn't long before I found myself moving ever nearer the cliff edge to get a better composition, I settled, teetering on the edge. I then grabbed the Tripod and I soon realised that I had made a bad choice bringing the much lighter more mobile MeFoto Roadtrip tripod as opposed to the heavier more robust Gitzo, the decision was made based on the walking and not the conditions of the location. Keeping the setup static in this wind was going to be a challenge in itself.

I setup as best I could and I was right about the weather, as no sooner had I attached the camera to the tripod, I started being pelted with horizontal rain and sleet with winds of circa 50mph, as you can see in this video that I managed to capture. 

Clinging on to my gear and a rock I figured I was going to struggle to get a shot here, especially with the filters I would require to hold back the harsh light in both the sky and the sea. So, I opted for a quick exposure bracketing method with five Bracketed shots, four stops apart on the hope this would be enough to blend together later in Lightroom and draw out the detail. Thankfully this was the case with the exception of some blown out areas in the sky. However, I was very pleased with what I had managed to capture in the conditions I found myself. I hope you agree, please feel free to tell me what you think in the comment box below as I'm always interested to read what people think of my work.

I would have chosen to hang around a little longer to get a better shot but the weather wasn’t looking like it was going to change for the better as quickly as it did for the worst and it was beginning to feel too dangerous. So, I packed up and headed back to the car walking against the driving wind and sleet. I have to be honest and say that I thought climbing the fells back home in the Lake District were easier than this, this really was a slog, but worth it in the end. The walk back seemed longer and harder but I was happy to have made it to the car for a well deserved coffee.

Thanks for reading, feel free to share and comment, all my images can be purchased via my gallery pages

Any way, having watched all the daylight pass throughout the week from my office at home, the weekend was upon us. The forecast was for heavy snow as is always the case this time of year. To my dismay it doesn't always happen. There had been a few flurries during the days and nights before the weekend but, mainly confined to the mid to high areas of the fells with a small sprinkling at low level in some places.

A couple of weekends ago I had decided to change the Mercedes to something a little more conducive to the weather and road conditions here in the Lakes and felt that a Range Rover Vogue was just the ticket. This weekend seemed a good time to challenge it's 4x4 capability by driving around the National Park and especially up a closed Kirkstone Pass, the national Parks highest Pass. It has to be said, the Range Rover laughed in the face of the snow and ice and it was a breeze and joy to drive. As I was taking this journey up the pass travelling from the Patterdale end. I was constantly looking in my mirrors at the view down the pass over Brothers Water, and then I spotted Place Fell in the distance with the sunlight gleaming off the snow. I had to do a quick three point turn and race back down in to Red Pit carpark. Whilst watching other cars sliding around I casually drove over the ice, parked up, set up in the blistering cold and managed take this shot

I couldn't believe how lucky I was and all by chance. Also, to top this off, the image made Flickr Explore that evening and now has some 7800 views. This can be seen here

Flickr Explore:

A Recipe for Success? Users who aspire to the ultimate level of recognition within the Flickr community will certainly become aware of something called Explore. Explore is a daily stream (viewed by thousands of people) of the top 500 photos as selected by Flickr's “interestingness” algorithm.

After the success of Saturday, I ventured back out again on Sunday. The Langdale valley was my target location this time round. So, I set off, and after an hour or so I arrived at the site of the Langdale Boulders. The Langdale Boulders are situated at Copt Howe, Chapel Stile. They have recently been designated by the English Heritage as an ancient monument of national importance, following the discovery of prehistoric 'cup and ring' marks.

There are several of these boulders, some large, some very large and some smaller, all with a variety of different compositions available. Having parked my car in the smallest of areas so not to annoy the residents. I wrapped up as it was literally freeeeeeeezing, grabbed my gear and set off walking the five metres to the boulders, sat my bag and tripod down, took on some much needed water from the walk and started surveying the area. This turned out to be a lot more trickier than I had hoped as this field was full of frozen live stock foot prints and deep puddles that could not be seen due to ice and snow and I found a few deep wet ones.

Most of the compositions involving the larger boulders seemed very busy and messy so I took myself over a wall and settled for some of the smaller boulders with the Langdale Pikes making a lovely snowy backdrop to this wintery composition.

That was it for my photography exploits this weekend and unfortunately or fortunately, depending how you look at it, I am now back in my office today doing the day job that pays most of the bills desperately wishing the days past for next weekend. 

Thanks for reading, feel free to share and comment, all my images can be purchased via my gallery pages

Take care in the snow and ice if you are out and about.

Late Saturday morning and with the housework chore hanging over me, I thought to myself what else could I do on a Saturday morning. Suddenly, a plethora of things entered my head........ Go swimming (can't swim) play golf (sold golf equipment) play bridge (no idea what it is) DO THE HOUSEWORK! that was it, thats what I'll do to fill my time. Off I went to find Henry, and together we trundled around the house Henry and I, both making noises, Henry sucking and me puffing, constantly sounding like I had a puncture, getting on with the task ahead. I then dusted with Henry, utilising the brush thingy attachment on the end, sucking up the dust, then the mop came out, mistake since the majority of our ground floor is either floor boards or tiles. That was it, house work completed........ I have no idea why the wife makes it look so complicated and often makes more noise than Henry. I have to say that Percy pup was looking rather perplexed throughout as he really couldn't comprehend why Dad had the scary noisy thing.

Anyway............ Now what to do, the morning had gone and most of the afternoon had gone. I needed to get out before more chores came my way. I grabbed my camera gear and headed down to Brothers Water, a lovely body of water between Ullswater and the Kirkstone Pass. It was originally called Broad Water but, was changed in the 19th Century to Brothers Waters as a result of two brothers drowning there. It's not ranked as one of the most popular of waters in the Lake District but it does offer some lovely scenery.

Unfortunately it seemed to take forever to drive south along the A592 beside Ullswater as a lot of drivers seem to have an issue with driving above 30mph on what is a 60mph road, this does become a little frustrating when you know where you want to be and you are now somewhat chasing the light a little. I do need to remind myself that I used to be a tourist before I moved to the Lakes, I will add though, I did utilise the handy lay-bys to allow people to pass me when I am taking in the scenery whilst watching the road of course.

I arrived at the parking after about 45 minutes of driving (normally 25) parked up, threw my gear on my back and trotted off to the Lake shoreline. I did have a composition in my head so I quickly set up, changed lenses and took a few images to check the composition, light and settings. I was happy with the information I had gathered. I added my Nisi Polariser, three Stop ND filter and I had to double stack my three and four stop Nisi ND Graduated filters to hold back the bright sky in order to not completely blow out the highlights. Surprisingly, this wasn't enough so I Exposure Bracketed 5 shots (2 under, 1 correct, 2 over exposed) in order to merge these later in Adobe Lightroom to get the right exposure for the entire scene. I was really pleased with the outcome seen below.

And to top it all off, I had this image Tweeted by BBC Springwatch.

I guess all in all it wasn't a bad day and it just goes to show what you can achieve when you get off your butt and get out there with your camera. It is however one of the hardest things to to do, motivate yourself, especially with Sunrises. The lesson here for me though and hopefully you is that you only need to get out for a couple of hours for someone to appreciate your work.

Thanks for reading, feel free to share and comment, all my images can be purchased via my gallery pages

Oh......... the wife is recovering well and I'm still doing the housework.

We awoke to my iPhone alarm at 04:30, it was set at this time for us (me) to wake in time for civil twilight, the blue light you get an hour or so before sunrise. Like all mornings when I have to set an alarm, I need at least three to go off before I'm ready to face the day. So, we eventually woke, packed the sleeping attire away and by this I mean we threw our sleeping bags etc to the back seat, started the car up and headed off. The plan was to get up and drive down to Buachaille to watch the sunrise and get some shots of the sun lighting the face of the mountain up. The cloud had other ideas though and to my annoyance no sun was hitting the mountain.

We carried on heading south down the A82 to Rannoch Moor and stopped off at Lochan nah-Aclaise as the sun was peeping through the clouds casting some light over the Loch and onto the mountains in the distance, I believe these to have been the Meall Beag and Mon Mountains as seen below

This was a quick snap due to the fact that I was being eaten alive by the Scottish midges and the car was parked on what was now becoming a rather busy A82. I quickly packed my gear away that was also covered in midges and jumped back in the car having now become one of the very low budget kung-fu warriors I spoke about on day one.

It had now started raining hard, so we decided it was time to move on with this road trip. We headed north west to the village of Ballachulish and travelled past Loch Leven which at this time was displaying some fantastic reflections and I had to try and get an image. We pulled off and headed down a single track road and found a spot on the shore. It wasn't the best of locations as I was shooting directly into the sun and this will always pose a problem, this was also compounded by the heat seeking and very vicious midges, given all this I still managed a few images and this was the pick of the bunch

Sporting a lot more midge bites I furiously packed up, jumped back in the car and headed to Fort William to see what we could see. At this stage I need to back track slightly........ We had packed bacon and sausages to cook for breakfast but given the likelihood of additional protein in the form of midges we decided to skip this. So, when we spotted a McDonalds in Fort William we figured that this would be a good opportunity to have breakfast and take stock of what the plan was for the day, we also had the added bonus of a Morrisons. After eating our Maccy D's breakfast, Percy and all, I headed in to Morrisons to locate some form of midge defence and for a whopping £7.00, it had better be worth it! Back in the car and off we went, continuing on our photographic travels.

Whilst in Fort William though, it would have been rude not to have taken a look at the might of Ben Nevis being the keen walkers we are back home in the Lake District, a pretty impressive lump, it has to be said, we will be back to walk you at some point but, thats for another day.

We drove north west on the A830 following the railway line to Mallaig, taking in some fantastic views on the way, the majority of which were seen through the rain. One spectacular piece of architectural landscape is the Glenfinnan Viaduct. Unfortunately this was not to be photographed on this trip due to the weather and the vast number of tourists all over the area grrrrrr, I often have to remind myself that we are all tourists at times and in this instance, we were. We made it to Mallaig and to be honest there wasn't a great deal to see and the rain was in. We did think however, that a train ride from Fort William to Mallaig was definitely in order at some point due to the stunning scenery it weaved its way through. We sat staring out to sea debating on whether to have a sleep listening to the rain or to move on............ Move on it was, we were going to head east! 

We drove off heading for the great Loch Ness! We could see on the map that the road east ran directly parallel to the Loch and figured there must be some parking locations close to the Loch for some photography opportunities. Well, we arrived at Fort Augustus the Gateway to Loch Ness, full of the hustle and bustle of people all over the place, we were glad to get through it quickly and on our way driving down past the Loch. The problem was, there were no parking areas to get down to the shore and the majority of the Loch was shrouded by trees all the way down. Now I understand that this is probably to stop drivers constantly looking at the scenery for road safety purposes but it would be nice to have had a view of the Loch. I guess this is why they have all the over priced boat trips.

After having a quick power nap to recharge our batteries we carried on east through Inverness, we were now heading to Portknockie. Portknockie is a little fishing village north east of Inverness. There is a lovely photographic subject I've wanted to shoot for some time but figured it was always too far to get to directly from the Lake District so, it seemed right to take advantage of being this far north. The subject I was keen to capture is the Bow Fiddle Rock, and I hope I did it justice

I spent about an hour waiting for the light to change and capturing different compositions, another of which you can see and purchase in my Landscape Gallery page, I figured that was enough time spent here, Percy was getting restless and so was the Wife.

Having packed up and jumping back in the car there was some debate as to where next or to just head home. Then after some time it was decided to head home but through the Cairngorms and as many scenic routes as possible deliberately avoiding any mundane roads on the way. Deep down, none of us were ready to head home just yet and the debate went on in the car for quite a while. I decided that if we were heading home we were also doing it via Fort William and Glencoe to take in some more of that fantastic scenery. We made a pitstop at a Fish and Chip shop in Fort William called Sammy's, which to be fair turned out to be a sweet shop, kebab shop, tobacco shop and I'm sure an anything shop. We parked up next to Loch Eil and suitably stuffed our face, Percy had a couple of sausages. It wasn't long after eating that we agreed that another night in the car at Glencoe wouldn't hurt and Percy agreed so, thats exactly what we did.

It was already dark when we arrived so we parked up in a suitable vacant parking area on the A82 opposite Buachaille. We kicked back watching the moon flicker in and out of the clouds to the side of the mountain knowing we were heading into another day and looking forward to what day three had for us, that was that, I was a sleep!

Thank you for reading and look out for Day three coming soon

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Bye from me for now.

So, it's Friday 4th August 2017, It's raining here in Penrith as we load the car up with all my Photography gear, this time we are packing for a wild camping adventure in Scotland. This requires a whole stack of stuff to be packed into the car. Tent, sleeping bags, stove and cooking essentials, change of clothes and of course, food, not just for Sarah and I but for Percy Sprocker Pup also. Our food consisted of lots of rehydrated pasta and super noddles along with lots of rubbish food to snack on. Our intention is to get to our location, pitch the tent, cook, eat and then wait for the sunset Golden Hour at 20:15.

We all jumped into the car and set off at around 15:20 heading north up the M6. It wasn't long before we both looked at each other and decided that we were both hungry or, Hung'y as we always put it. With this in mind, I frantically added a McDonalds stop over to my SatNav and it guided me to a Carlisle McDonalds drive thru and a very busy one at that. Again, we were at great danger of cutting all this very fine at the other end. We ordered our food....... Big Tasty for Sarah, Spicy Signature for me and a plain Hamburger for Percy. We gratefully received our food and went on our way. Our gratefulness was short lived as they had got my order wrong and I had been given a BBQ Signature by mistake, I had a rant at how useless they are and began filling my face regardless, Percy was happy with his burger as he always is. Unfortunately for him, he often eats what we eat when we are on the road. The journey as a whole was plain sailing and we made good time.

We had never been to this location before and were in awe of the spectacular views as we drove through western Rannoch Moor and then onto Glencoe, trying to take in all the views of the surrounding mountains was a great experience as a photographer. Being in awe and looking for compositions had to wait, a suitable place to camp had to be found.

With this in mind we headed down a road off the very busy A82 just before Buachaille Etive Mor (Stob Dearg) hoping for somewhere to park up and pitch the tent as we had a lot of stuff that we wanted to keep close. However, it seems everyone else had the same idea, every little suitable parking and pitching area was taken and what was more worrying was that everyone we see had a midge net over them and those that didn't looked like they were acting in a low budget kung-fu movie........ hands and feet all over the place! This raised the alarm for us as we did not have any form of midge defence, which was a real, real error on our part and a huge mistake, one we won't be making again, so much so that I have two midge nets on there way from Amazon as I type.

We couldn't find a location to park and pitch and decided to head back out on to the A82 to chance our luck along there. It was now getting close to the golden hour for sunset so we parked up in one of the carparks opposite the iconic Three Sisters, the sky was now developing some lovely colours and I didn't want to miss this......... Operation park and pitch had to wait.

I located my camera gear amongst all the other bags in the back of the car and setup. I took a few images and was happy with the result

We jumped back in the car and carried on with our pursuit to locate somewhere to park and pitch before we run out of light. I found myself pulling up at every lay-by followed by a debate with Sarah as to whether this was the place. This went on for what felt like hours, I felt like I was working for Google Maps mapping all the lay-by's in Glencoe. This fun was about to come to an end.

Whilst driving at circa 50mph in the dark along the A82, we spotted a couple of dear grazing at the roadside, the problem was, they also see us.......... One ran to my left, the other started to head left and then decided to run straight out in front of me........... I threw on my brakes, ABS kicked in and I steered hard to the left and then BANG! I clipped the back end of the dear with the right front corner of my car. Up popped my bonnet, off ran the dear and I drove slowly down the road in slight shock and relief that I see it run off but, I still had the worry of what damage had happened to the car, was our Scotland weekend going to be over and short lived. I pulled over in a lay-by, one I had already mapped, and got out to take a look at the car. As I got out and wondered round to the front I had visions of a huge dent, smashed lights, coolant leaking. To my surprise there was no damage with the exception of the bonnet of my E-Class Mercedes sitting about 8 inches higher where the windscreen is. I popped the bonnet and suddenly remembered that this was a safety feature and it was designed to happen in the event of a front end bump. Mercedes call it Active Bonnet, its designed for pedestrian protection but it also works on deer thankfully. Having realised what had occurred I reset the bonnet and felt relieved for both us and the deer.

Given what just happened we decided to head back to the carpark where I took the image above, parked up and agreed that sleeping in the car was our best option for the first night. We got Percy out and let him have a run around on the lead for a bit, grabbed our sleeping bags, lowered the front seats and settled down for the night looking at the stars and contemplating what was in store for us tomorrow................ thats for another blog. 

Thank you for reading and look out for Day 2 coming soon

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Bye from me for now.

This meant the wife and I getting up at 02:30 (should have been 02:00), throwing everything in the car, including Percy the Sprocker Dog, who was a little confused given he hadn't been to bed for long. It wasn't long before his confusion lead to excitement as the hustle and bustle of moving stuff near the front door made him realise we were going out! Thankfully I had packed all my gear the evening before. It was at this point though Sarah had started to regret not making our food for the day the evening before.

Anyway, we got moving at about 03:15ish and I suddenly remembered that I had to put fuel in the car having put this off the day before due to the huge queues at Morrisons. This was now causing some alarm as the tide was in over the Lindisfarne causeway at circa 05:45 so we were in imminent danger of seeing the sunrise from the car and not being able to get across to the Holy Island. I swiftly filled up and put my foot down. 

After negotiating the North Pennines which included several owl sitings and the avoidance of adding to the road kill statistics, we made it to the start of the causeway at 05:20. So, for those of you with a keen eye on numbers will realise that I had completed a two and a half hour drive in less than two hours hmmmmmmm......... We were in the Golden Hour for Sunrise and it was spectacular to say the least. We pulled up on the causeway to take a few shots whilst keeping a watchful eye on the time and the tide, it was creeping in. I did manage to get a couple of shots including this Bracketed shot.

Shortly after I took this image we noticed someone coming out from the hut you see in the image. As he walked toward us with his camping gear strapped to him we decided to be nosey and ask what he was doing in there. It turns out he was walking back from the Island to the mainland and misjudged the tide at around 22:40 the evening before so he had to camp in the hut overnight. So it seems the hut had its use for a very pleasant Dutch guy. Having packed away my gear we jumped back in the car and continued across the causeway watching the sun come up and the tide come in.

Once across we parked in the huge carpark located just before the village, the carpark is available to non residence and designed to keep traffic to a minimum inside the village. We paid our £4.40 parking fee, I grabbed my camera bag, Sarah grabbed her rucksack with our food and flasks in, let Percy Sprocker out the back and off we went to explore. The great thing about arriving on the island this early and minutes before the tide was due in, is that we pretty much had the island to ourselves until circa 11:00 when the tide was due out again. The place was like a ghost town!

We strolled around the cliff tops and the edge of the shores, Sarah seal spotting, Percy ball chasing and me looking for some images and nice compositions to shoot. We came across some lovely boat yards that look like upside down boats, there are a few images of these around as they are fairly iconic in the photography world. I managed to get a couple of shots but by now the sun was getting ever higher and the light ever harsher.

After this shot we strolled on some more and found a nice bench to kick back for some coffee and rolls taking in the views and watching the fisherman load their boats up to go hunt for their daily catch.

After a couple of cups of well earned coffee and some ham rolls we wondered off towards the Castle, which to be fair was a let down as it was covered in scaffolding and tarpaulin, so that was a no, no compositionally. I duly picked my chin up and searched for more images to shoot. It wasn't long before I stumbled across what looked like the remains of an old wooden jetty protruding from the sea. To be fair, I just had to turn my head to the right. I figured these were worth investigating, I also noticed that Bamburgh Castle could also just be seen in the distance. So I set up and took what ended up being my final image on the Island that morning.

I would definitely recommend The Holy Island to anyone, not just for the photography opportunities but for the beauty and tranquility of the island, especially at that time in the morning. 

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Bye from me for now.

Thankfully I was left with plenty of time between the ceremony and my next duty of the speech to take some pics, these will be in my Wedding Gallery soon after they have been proofed by the couple themselves.

So, after all the excitement of my very first wedding shoot I felt it went well and was happy with the results. As for the best man bit, this was the second time I was a best man and the second time I was best man for my brother....... I did add a point in my speech about hoping it will be the last.

Thanks for stopping by and showing an interest.

So, over the next couple of days I'll be checking my kit and packing it all up ready for my week away with the family to the Lake District where my real passion for photography all started. Currently the weather is clear with plenty of snow on the fells so I'm looking forward to some good clear conditions but, you never can tell in the Lakes....... The rain has a habit of rolling in at the most inappropriate time.

I'm hoping to get to some really great locations, the majority of which will probably have to be on foot so I need to make sure that I have my walking gear too, including the warm stuff as it's going to be very cold, especially the earlier I head out.

Right, best get on with it as I haven't got long and I have stacks of stuff to pack.    

We arrived at our desired destination around 11:30, not the best time of day to be shooting the sea on such a clear day. However, these spontaneous delights are set to test us. So, having set up and firing off a few test shots I soon realised it was time to test my recently purchased Lee BIG stopper. lets see how many badly exposed shots I can create I said to myself. I have to say, experimenting with this new filter was fun, and having said this, it wasn't all bad to be honest. I must of taken about 50 odd shots and soon got to grips with the conditions.

All in all it was a successful day despite the fact that we were disturbed toward the end of the afternoon by a couple of pesky youths throwing stones in our general direction............

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment below.