This weekend I planned to visit Wast Water and Wasdale, the forecast was nothing special, rain, strong winds and low clouds, but I hope to get some moody, atmospheric images from here.
I arrived nice and early despite having to navigate through numerous large puddles and flooded roads to get here, due to the very wet weather we have been experiencing lately.
I drove to the far end of the valley with the plan to pick out any composition has I returned down the valley as the light improved during the morning.
It was not long before I seen an interesting cove in the lake, so I investigated, leaving my gear in the car as it was teaming down with rain at this time.
An interesting composition was in the offering using a sunken fence has a leading line looking towards the cloud covered fells in the distance, a long exposure, probably black and white was the plan in my head.
I returned to the car, got my gear, donned some suitable wet weather clothing, and returned to the scene, I stood under the umbrella for 15 minutes or so as it was just too wet to get the camera out of the bag. The big bonus of these conditions is that you normally do not have to wait long for the wind to blow the offending clouds over you, to hopefully bring some dryer conditions.
Once the rain subsided, I went to open my bag, and what a shock I got, NO CAMERA.
There were several choice words muttered, what a bloody plonker, coming all this way and no bloody camera in the bag.
Really cheesed off and not feeling in the best of moods, I trudged back to the car and set off home, what a waste of a morning!
Later in the day, I had got over the little mistake that I had made earlier in the day and was coming to see the funny side of it, the rain was still pelting down, but the forecast was for the rain to end through night and the possibility of a dryer spell the next morning. There was no way I was travelling far, some where local and easy to reach was the order of the day.
So for the second morning my alarm awoke me and I set off towards Keswick and Derwent Water, thinking that I would like to catch some of the autumnal colours which had evaded me so far this year.
On arriving at Derwent Water viewing the scene from Crow Park, the dull flat light was not helping my enthusiasm, although I did note the high-water levels in the lake.
I ditched my plans and returned to the car, thinking where could I get too that would allow me to get some decent photos, racking my brain, I decided to head up Borrowdale and visit the Old Mill, has I had not been here for over a year, and the high-water levels would surly provide a alternative view of the building.
I parked the car, donned the magic anti-wet clothing, and set off to the location, needless to say, 10 minutes into the short walk, the heavens opened again, it was beginning to feel like the Noah’s Ark could be launched soon, it had rained that much recently.
Once I reached the Old Mill, I shuffled around looking for my viewpoint all the time trying to remain under the umbrella, there was a impressive amount of water flowing down the beck, so I was treading carefully, I did not want to end up going for a swim.
Standing patiently watching the rain hammering down I was beginning to think that this was going to become the second wasted journey in as many days, but patience is a virtue, and after about 20 minutes the rain subsided, so I set about taking some photos of the old mill, using a selection of shutter speed to get differing aspects of movement in the water, some quite long exposures of about 6 seconds totally washed out any detail in the water leaving very milky white lines through the image, I found these images lacking in interest so I went back to using slightly faster shutter speeds to get a balance of movement and details in the water.
After some time, I was content with the images that I had taken so I packed up and set off walking along the bank of the beck, generally admiring the contrasting green moss and the autumnal colours of some of the leaves on the trees, As I got lower down the beck towards the bridge I noticed some golden brow leaves on some rocks next to a series of small rapids, so I set about setting up a photo of this scene.
Once I had this shot in the can, I packed up my very wet camera, and bag to begin the short hike back to the car in the pouring down rain.
Once home I began to review the images that I had taken, of which three of these were quite good.
So ended a eventful and embarrassing weekend of photography.
