In August this year (2010) I visited the Lake District this is the second part of the story behind the photographs taken during the visit.

There are many tourist hot spots in the Lake District. For photographers one of these has to be Aira Force near Ullswater. Aira Force is easily accessible, a small car park at the side of the road. Good clear paths and some steps (steep, slippery) with a convenient handrail lead you down to the viewing point. This is where the problem begins everyone has been there and many more are about to follow after you. I am not concerned with taking 100% original never done before photographs because I don’t believe they exist, and to some degree every picture is different if only for the reason that only you were there at that time. What I do believe in though is “working a location”; getting to know it the best you can in the time that you have available, and using this time to capture a range of compositions. Sometimes walking a little further down a trail or peeking around a corner can open up new possibilities. This method does not always produce stunning photographs; sometimes there is only one viewpoint that can truly do a scene justice, but I had travelled 400 miles to visit the Lake District, surely I owed it to myself that I put some effort in to each location that I visited.

 This first image (above right)  is the typical view of Aira Force you see in the tourist guides, it is more commonly seen in Colour rather than Black and White. I have taken care when composing the photograph to ensure that the safety railings and concrete steps are kept out of the composition. The biggest challenge here was the lighting and conditions the picture was taken under (I will cover this in another post in the future). It was very dark at the bottom of the waterfall and bright at the top, the spray was constantly falling on the camera.

Having taken this picture I knew I would have a good photograph of Aira Force, but I also knew that this was nothing new, it told me no more about the landscape than I already knew from guide books. My mind was drawn to the fact that if there is a bridge at the top then I must be able to get up there and see more of Aira Beck. I walked back up the footpaths to the top and spent a little time wandering around the bridge, but none of the compositions felt right. Exploring further along the beck produce more interesting photographic opportunities. It was not until I was about to turn around and give up that I found a clearing in the wood with a perfectly placed dry gravel bed to stand on. I was first attracted to the waterfall. I tried a number of compositions but they all lacked interest, then by choosing a high view point (The camera was above my head) I was able to include the pool above the waterfall leading your eye deeper into the scene until connecting with the second waterfall in the distance. This gives the eye a pleasing journey to take it through the composition.

The close up is there to tell the viewer a little more about the detail in the landscape, it is part of the main image composed from a different angle. Can you see which part?

 Next time you find yourself at one of our many over visited natural beauty spots Work the location take a few different photographs, close in on the details to try and say something about the landscape. As digital photography and our renewed interest in the outdoors grows a single “seen before image” however well executed will not be enough to satisfy the camera club judges. Nor should it satisfy the photographer. Use your 2 most important pieces of equipment to the full – legs and eyes!

Derwent Water – After The Thunder was a pivotal point in my photography. Although I had been using digital post processing for a while, it was the first digital photograph that I was truly happy with.

It was taken late on a mid September afternoon, I had been walking on Skiddaw that morning and the cloud was building fast and thunder could be heard nearby. Descending through cloud I could feel the static charge in the air, I even witnessed a mini twister scoot across the fell side. I knew we were in for a storm so descended quickly to the car and headed for shelter.

I was staying nearby at the Camping Club site at Keswick. My tent was pitched on the edge of Derwent Water, as the rain fell in sheets and rumbles of thunder could be heard and felt overhead. I sat and watched the scene unfold through an opening in the flysheet. Canoes, sail boats and walkers raced for cover. As fast as the rain came it stopped. I had never seen conditions like this before in the Lake District. The storm clouds travelled deeper into the Borrowdale valley, leaving behind a silence and dead calm. It was still hot and very humid, mist rose from the woodland. A single sailboat becalmed on the lake was being slowly rowed back to shore.

I mounted the camera on a Unilock Tripod with a ball and socket head, I zoomed in on the boat, composed, and took a few photographs, bracketing to make sure I had captured the landscape and atmosphere before me.

2 weeks later the film was scanned into my PC using a canoscan 2700. I was disappointed. The original photograph looked dull and grey, the only colour was the red sail on the boat. Technically there was nothing wrong exposure, sharpness and focus were good, the composition worked. It failed on a deeper level, it had not captured what I had felt or seen. I did not reveal the subtle colour changes the sky had gone through, the mist was lost in the grey background, the sail on the boat was too bright, it did not portray the stillness on the lake. But all the elements were still there.

I used Photoshop 4. I selected the best image from the bracketed shots I had taken (partly decided by the fact the oars are clear of the water in this photograph). The image was converted to grayscale. I created about eight layers to isolate elements within the frame, the boat, water, sky, islands, woodland, and fell side. I was then able to adjust the exposure, and contrast of each of these. I found I was able to enhance the feeling of recession and bring out the mist.

 The photograph still did not fully convey the warm browns and yellows in the sky left by the thunder. I converted the image to a quad tone and adjusted the curves of all four inks to achieve the finished picture. The final act was to add a spot of colour to the sailboat.

 Why is this image so significant?

Well, it captures the feeling and the atmosphere. It reproduces not only the scene and what I has envisaged in my minds eye, but recreates the mood, the stillness of the water the, the absence of wind seen through the boat, strange colours in the sky and humidity, with mist rising from the woodland. And it was the first digital landscape photography that I had managed to do this with.

Technical Details:
Camera:               Nikon F90x
Lens:                              Sigma 75-300APO
Film:                     Fuji Sensia 100
Other:                   Unilock trip