“But the conditions weren’t right” and other excuses. Making the most of the Changeable Lake District Weather as Landscape Photographer.

Landscape photography in The Lake District can be the most rewarding of endeavours, especially when you’re rewarded with stunning views, bathed in light which is equally as beautiful. However, the rapidly changing conditions can make it as frustrating as it is gratifying. When we don’t get the conditions we had hoped for, we have to adapt!

I’m writing this following a trip to Blea Tarn, two nights ago (much longer ago at the time you’re likely reading this, as for once, I have managed to keep to my blogging schedule so some of the posts are a couple of months behind when I actually went out!), when I had planned to shoot sunset, but right from setting off, this shoot felt like it was doomed!

The title suggests that this just applies to The Lake District, but I think those of us who live in the UK can agree that the weather can be ideal one second, and then we blink and the sky is full of “that fine rain that soaks you through”!

So what do you do when the weather and the conditions aren’t on your side? I’m going to explore this little more deeply in this blog. Grab a brew, it could be a long one!

Blea Tarn - Failed Sunset.

The issues with my trip to Blea Tarn started a soon as I tried to leave the driveway at home. I had to wait for what felt like an age to get out of the driveway, and at the end of the road, I had to wait behind all of the cars which had just driven past me as we all tried to join a busy dual carriageway, which seemed to have much more traffic on it than it does during the morning rush hour. The journey was further hampered by some very slow drivers along the whole route!

When I left the house, it was looking like we were on for an incredible sunset, and as I approached Coniston, the light was incredible, it was already starting to look soft and golden, dappled light was dancing across the fells, picking out some incredible features in the landscape. I probably should have pulled over and taken out the long lens, but I was hell-bent on getting to Blea Tarn, getting parked up and hot footing it down to the water's edge to see what the light was going to do for me. (Spoiler alert, it did nothing!)

About 30 minutes into the journey, it was becoming apparent the light was all but gone, despite there being a full 60+ minutes of Golden Hour remaining. It was going to be flat grey hour instead and I was now in the wrong place!

So what do you do in these situations? I suppose I was fortunate in many ways, but was particularly grateful that this was a shoot I had driven to (the walk from the car park to the water is no more than 300 meters at a push), and I hadn’t walked for 2 hours up a hill just to end up clagged in and without any views to speak of.

Once I had reconciled myself with the fact there wasn’t going to be any golden hour light, I started to look around for other compositions which might work, and how the conditions I had were going to help me. The first order of business was to get the tripod set up. Not only was there no golden light, but there was also a thick layer of clouds, robbing me of light to shoot with - handholding was out of the question.

A quick evaluation of the conditions led me to the conclusion/observation that there wasn’t very much wind, barely a breath. There were also not many birds on the water (plenty of them were singing and calling to each other as the light faded), and there were no late evening swimmers in the water creating bow waves as they freestyled through the water. I soon realised this meant the classic reflection shot was “on”.

There were some ripples in the water, but any breeze was intermittent and weak, the movement in the water quickly dissipated and the reflections were mirror like! I popped a CPL filter on the front of my lens, adjusted it to remove as much the glare as possible and then started shooting. I tried a variety of exposure lengths to really smooth out the water and used my 16-35mm f/4 lens to give myself some composition options in the scene. The sky was interesting and foreground interest at this location comes in the form or rocks/boulders at the edge of the water. I also exposure stacked these images so I could preserve the highlight and shadow detail - there were small sections of the sky that would have been completely blown-out otherwise.

The resulting images are some of the best ones I feel like I have captured at this location and I will share one of them in this blog. Even though it isn’t the image I was hoping to capture, I am really happy with how it turned out. Blea Tarn isn’t known for being a “classic” sunset location, but the position of the sun at this time of the year, has some potential to throw some amazing colour onto the fells - The Langdale Pikes are the dominant feature of the skyline here and their rugged, weathered surfaces, full of interest, make excellent additions to photos here.

So what next? I’d got a shot in the bag and it would have been easy enough for me to go home. But when I tuned my ears in, I noticed the distinct call of a Kingfisher; I’ve heard this sound many times, but have only ever seen one once and that was a fleeting glance as it flew by me at breakneck speed. Moments later, I saw a flash of blue right in front of me, and our little whistling friend landed on a rock a short distance around the lake from where I was. I was no where near quick (or quiet!) enough to get the long lens and extended on the front of the camera - these guys are notoriously shy and easily spooked and just as I raised the camera to my eye, it was gone as quickly as it arrived.

This was now my new quarry, and I set up to try and photograph it. I watched it for a few minutes and saw where it kept returning to. Once I got set up and focussed, it never came back. This was disappointing, as I saw the bird sat inches from where I had moved from. I did have a go at shooting it from a long way away, with the 70-200 + 2x extender. The f/8 aperture foisted on me by extender, and the rapidly failing light meant I just didn’t have the means to capture anything close to me being happy with it.

I do have some images, but they are pictures with a kingfisher in them, rather than a picture of a kingfisher. This aperture restriction is a definite limitation of shooting with an extender and at some points I will invest in a dedicated super-zoom, but for now, I know I can back with more light and know I have a good chance of another opportunity to capture this bird, which is a bit of a bucket list photo for me. I will be back and I will succeed.

The remainder of my time here was spent fairly aimlessly looking for new compositions, having another attempt at the reflection shot and getting my foot buried in about 10” of bog.

This whole experience did however, serve to remind me that just because the light isn’t there, doesn't mean photos, the opportunities to learn and to discover more about the location you are in, are not.

Roanhead Dunes - Bad Planning for Tides

Another trip earlier this year, this time to Roanhead Nature Reserve, saw me in a situation where I had some amazing light and a long evening in late July to work with. What I had failed to do was to check the tide tables and I ended up with a scene which had all of the light as well as all of the mud and sand. Vast expanses of both, it was flat and largely featureless. The surrounding hills and the small town of Millom on the opposite side of the bay make great features but foreground interest was scoring a big fat zero.

Instead I turned my interest to some of the local flora, working closely and slowly to get detail shots of things I could find in and around the dunes, there are plenty of grasses here as well as some interesting shapes amongst the dunes. My favourite shot of this evening was one of some long grass which had gone to seed and was catching the light prefectly.

The lessons here are 1) I should also follow my own advice and check the tide tables (I wasn’t going anywhere that would have put me in danger but it would have saved me a lot of hard work) and 2) The detail shots are just as interesting, challenging and fun to shoot as the bigger grand vistas presented to us.

I could go on with examples like this, but I think by now, the message that there aren’t “wrong” conditions, just different conditions to those we would prefer don’t snuff out our chances of taking a good photo, they just mean we need to look in different places and identify different subjects.

But what about times when we can see that the conditions aren’t ideal before we have even left the house. We've all been there, especially in the summer, when the weather is great, but “the light is flat” or “it’s too bright, the light is too harsh” and then we settle in to watch the cricket instead…

In the winter, it’s the opposite set of circumstances/excuses - “too cold”, “too wet” and “too overcast”. We’re just never really happy with the weather, are we?

How do we as landscape photographers cope with these kinds of days, how do we muster up the energy to get out and do the thing we love?

My advice would be to pack your kit and go no matter what the weather, providing you are doing it safely.

Gummer’s How - Torrential Rain

Within the last week (at the time of writing), I packed up and went out with the camera, hoping to shoot a sunset or at least something close to one and headed out in the car to Gummer’s How, a short drive from where I live. The rain was coming down like stair rods and the wind was strong to say the least. I wasn’t hopeful, especially as when I pulled up in the car park and the rain seemed to get heavier and heavier. Any thoughts of walking up the hill were soon put out of my head and I resigned myself to the fact that this was going to be a shoot by the roadside, or it was going to be a complete bust and I would be going home with an empty memory card.

I took the car to a lay-by and waited. And I didn’t have to wait for very long until the tiny patch of orange in the sky started to spread. Not much, but enough that I got some shots I didn’t think I would get and that I am really happy with, I have shared one in this blog and the rest will be on my Instagram. But if I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have got these images in the can and wouldn’t have had the experience of watching the sunset take place in spite of all of the weather that was going on around it.

I think it’s also important to remember that old adage, “There’s no such thing as the wrong weather, just the wrong clothing”, even if this entire shoot did take place from the warmth and comfort of the car.

Local Nature Reserve - I Went Out in Conditions I Knew Were Bad

My last example.. and for this one, I headed out to my local nature reserve, and did so in conditions that were less than ideal. On purpose. Simply to try and prove my point for this blog. It was humid, damp, raining on and off, the light was failing and there was a thick layer of cloud (doubly disappointing conditions give that this was the night of the blood moon, which was most definitely not visible in my part of The Lake District).

I drove to the location, donned my fancy new mustard yellow waterproof, grabbed the camera and headed out. I did begin to wander what I was doing. The light was “drab” at best, and being inside a waterproof in these humid conditions was not the most amazing thing I have ever done, but I carried on regardless and surprised myself with what I noticed… there were wet ferns, trees that looked interesting against the grey background and a group of trees that form a bit of an arch.

Were these images all bangers? Absolutely not. But were they good enough for me to pleased with them? Did I learn from them? Yes. Absolutely. I’ve posted some of them for you to have a look at down at the bottom of the page.

I think that one of the biggest takeaways for me with this shoot was the fact I learned, and a learned a lot; that’s something that we need to think about a lot with photography, we might not be getting portfolio standard images all the time (if you are, then hat’s off to you, you’re doing well!), but are we learning all the time? Yes, we are.

I wouldn’t often say that someone else’s approach is wrong, but I will fundamentally disagree with anyone who says that they don’t or can’t learn anything about their own photography (or indeed themself) or about their own photographic skill, everything time they go out with the camera and make images.

If you don’t think that you’re learning, then go and take a look at the images from you last shoot. Are they all keepers? If they’re not then why aren’t they? Why did you reject them? What will you do differently next time and how are you going to adjust what you’re doing to make sure that it doesn’t happen again?

And if you’re new to photography (welcome!), and you’re not sure what what has caused the issues in you image then I would recommend checking my blog post on diagnosing the faults in your images which explores some common issues that we all encounter and tells you how to fix them or stop them from happening again?

So what did I learn from this photoshoot in less than ideal conditions?

First and foremost I thought about the opportunity this gave me to scout locations. I’ve got new pins and notes on one of my maps so that I can plan shoots in conditions which are suited to the shots I want to get. I learned that even though my camera is still and on a tripod, I need to remember that other things still move and this is going to show up as (largely) unwanted motion blur in my images. On top of this, I reinforced my own thoughts that every shoot has the potential to be a complete bust, but with some creative thinking and a lot of will power, going out in sub-optimum conditions can still result in shots that I wouldn’t have got if I had stayed at home!