After my epic day of driving from Eskdale to Wast Water back through Eskdale over the Hardknott Pass to Blea Tarn I still wanted more. So I drove back to Wast Water for the sunset. It wasn’t a particularly great sunset, but after walking about a mile from the car through a farmers sheep filled field I had to capture what was there. The water wasn’t as still as it had been that morning as the wind had really picked up.

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On the drive up to Eskdale I wanted to stop at a few places, obviously Windermere was the first, but Kay had mentioned her love of Beatrix Potter, so I looked up Hill Top (the house that once belonged to the children’s writer who wrote the Peter Rabbit books). A quick Google search told me the house was closed on Fridays, but the garden was open and free (every other day you have to pay to get into the garden and house). So we went anyway as I only really wanted to get a photo of the outside of the house and Kay had already been inside. This was the best I could capture in the lighting conditions.

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As with Wast Water I had heard photographers talk about Blea Tarn, but never had the opportunity to get there as I always seemed to be on the wrong side of the infamous Hardknott Pass. This road has the title of steepest road in England achieving a gradient of 1 in 3 (about 33%) so it was a very exciting drive over the hills to get to this location. However the above image shows my reward for the drive. I certainly want to explore more of the Langdale area of the Lake District in future.

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Having seen dozens of photographs of this jetty or launch at Coniston Water, I was pleased to have found it to capture my own images of it. Surprisingly there were quite a few people stood on and around it having their pictures taken when I got there, so I waited patiently until they moved on to be able to capture the above image without the distraction of people. When I’m next in the area I hope to re-take this photograph at night or in the early evening.

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There were about four or five of these birds stood proudly on the metal railing. Rather than trying to get them all in, I zoomed up as best I could in order to focus on this creature. The background shows the Ferris wheel of Central Pier. To capture this image I used my Nikon 18-200mm, obviously zoomed up to 200mm. I think the best part of this photograph is the soft background which helps the bird stand out a lot more.

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Finally I found the Jetty that I had seen in so many photographs that I had wished to photograph, but I chose to explore the area around to see what else I could find. Sadly I came across this bird caught in some fishing tackle. I have no idea how this happened but I was able to get about six feet away from the bird without it moving. Unfortunately I didn’t have any scissors or a knife on me so there was nothing I could do for the creature. I still feel a little guilty about that even now.

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I have probably been to Blackpool half a dozen times now, but never really taken a picture of Blackpool Tower that I have been truly happy with until now. A competition title came up called “Reflections” and as much as I am unsure if I will enter the comp it is great to be given topics or little projects to focus on. I was walking along Central Pier when I noticed this large area of still water. Ordinarily I might not have made the effort to walk down the beach in order to capture this image. However, because I had the topic of reflections in the back of my mind, I did make the effort and it really paid off.

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Driving home from our long weekend in the Lake District I wanted to stop off somewhere interesting. At first I thought about a limestone pavement, but the weather wasn’t that great and then coming along the M6 we saw signs for Blackpool. A couple of hours later (after fish & chips) I was stood by the above roundabout at dusk waiting for the lights to be switched on. As you can see it wasn’t too late as there was still some light in the sky, which helped the picture in my opinion.

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