February 2026 has been a very slow and unproductive month for my photography work and my social media updates.
There are the usual reasons for this, my lack of enthusiasm, time constraints, shocking weather in the Lake District, and family commitments.
The major reason for my lack of photography is very personal, that being my wife, Carole has had major surgery and has needed me to support her through her journey
She isn’t out of the water just yet, but she is on the mend, and hopefully it wont belong until she has her mobility and independence back.
So with this aside, what have I been up too during the month of February, there isn’t much but here it is!
Red Squirrels.
The first weekend of February, a good friend of mine Lorraine introduced me to these adorable creatures at a local location.
I have always wanted to see these creatures in the wild and to photograph them, this visit fully met my wishes. Once the Squirrels became use to us, they were soon scampering about snatching the food that we had laid out for them.
Despite the speed and agility of the squirrels, and me still getting use to my new camera, I managed to get a few reasonable images form this visit, many thanks to Lorraine for her support and guidance.
Red Squirrel feedingI’m watching you!White Belly
Derwentwater
I had a little bimble (a leisurely walk or journey) around Derwentwater, hoping to meet the forecast mist, sadly this was missing, but a nice wee walk anyway!
The Centenary Stones, created to celebrate the Centenary of the National Trust in 1995.
The Green Curved bench was placed on the headland of Calfclose Bay by the Keswick Lions Club to celebrate the Millennium.
The Derwentwater Launches, these travel in a clockwise and anticlockwise direction visiting the seven landing jetties scattered around the lake.
I had a short chat with Mark Hetherington about our plans for the morning and the conditions, as us photographers do!
Mark is a very good photographer who has an excellent back catalogue of images on his Instagram page (Instagram).
Despite not taking many images, it was good to be out in the fresh air and to be able to have a pleasant walk about without the maddening crowds of later in the day.
One of the Keswick Launch’s tied up at the jettyA Lone Hawthorn on the shore of DerwentwaterThe curved seat at Calf Close BayThe Centenary Stones
Harrington Red Squirrels
A return to the wood to photograph the Red Squirrels, to horn my photo skills and to witness these stunning little creatures again.
We had to wait a while until they made an appearance, but the wait was worth it.
I managed to get some better photographs of the squirrels this time, and cant wait to get back to photo them again.
PosingClimbingFound Them Nuts!
Crummock Water
I had a photograph in my head that I have been trying to capture at Crummock Water for some time, so with the weather gods looking promising I set off to the northern end of the lake.
What a pleasant morning it was, cold, crisp, and clear with a slight dusting of snow on the higher fells. The water was flowing over the weir but not has high as I thought it would be considering the amount of rainfall we have had recently.
The weir at Crummock Water looking towards Mellbreak, Red Pike and High Stile.
United Utilities want to drastically change Crummock Water by removing the weir and lowering the level of the water by 1.3 meters, I have covered this in a previous news post, this can be found here.
After taking a short walk around the southern and northern shore of Crummock Water, I decided to head to the southern end of the lake, a area that I had not visited for several years.
It is a lovely walk around the southern shore of Crummock Water, I was hoping that the old rowing boat would be there, this has made many photos in the past.
As I headed around the rocky headland where there are three rocks that jut out into the lake, I could not resist stopping to get an image, the light was not the best, but it wasn’t too shabby a shot.
Headland
As I was walking along the lake shore, I noticed three black horses and a whit horse in a field which were being back-light by the mornings sun, the white horse made a really nice composition.
Silhouetted White Horse
Sadly when I reached the meadows which sit between Crummock Water and Buttermere and where the rowing boat use to live, the area was totally waterlogged, far too much flowing water flowing through the reeds to move around, but I did manage to reach the little bay where the rowing boat is normally located, this was missing, so getting wet legs and feet was not worth the end result lol.
Unfortunately, this sums up my photography exploits for February, but all being well with Carole, I have a week’s photography to look forward too on the Isle of Harris and Lewis in March.
Thank you for finding the time to read this news blog, until the next one, stay healthy and safe.
After a smashing Christmas and New Year where we spent 4 nights of photography and R&R at the Kingshouse Hotel in Glencoe, January was soon upon us, and it was time to plan my photography activities for January 2026.
2025 had been the most prolific year for me to date, photography wise as I had visited the most locations in one year and taken the highest number of photos in one year. My goals for 2026 were to at least match this target but ideally improve on this.
I had taken the decision at the end of 2025 to change my camera system, the reason for this was that I wanted a larger megapixel sensor.
Don’t get me wrong, the Olympus system and specially the OM1 MK II camera is an excellent bit of kit, but I made the decision that I would prefer a larger sized senor, hence the change to the Fujifilm X-H2 camera and a suit of lenses, this change was to be funded by a mix of purchasing new and trading/exchanging my current Olympus gear.
So, the second week of January saw the new kit arrive, first thing was to update my insurance cover, after all, you never know when you are going to need this!
During the next couple of weeks, I was using the camera in and around the garden to build up my knowledge and muscle memory for the new camera as there were some considerable differences.
It suddenly dawned on me that January was nearing its end, and I had barley used the camera in anger, there were justifiable reasons for this, poor weather conditions, lack of enthusiasm on my part, but the main reason was that family considerations had taken precedence, and quite rightly too.
So, come the end of January I had the grand total of two photo shoots to my name, not the best start to the year, but hopefully we can improve on this.
The Aurora Borealis Super Show
The first time the new camera system was used in anger was on the night of the 19th of January, the night of the amazing Aurora Borealis show.
I received updates of an impending show of the northern lights at about 6 pm, we waited a hour or so just to check if there would be any sign of the aurora borealis, with further updates arriving at 7 pm and 8pm.
I was lucky enough to witness the Northern Light show in May 2024, but Carole had never seen them, so tonight the two of us would go out to see if we could see this magical nature show.
We live near the coast, and upon leaving the home there was a slight covering of mist outside our house this didn’t damp our enthusiasm as we headed for a high viewpoint at the far end of the town which has little light pollution.
Disappointingly we arrived only to find that the mist was preventing any sighting of the northern lights at this location.
So, we decided to drive 10 minutes out of town to higher ground, in the hope of getting above the mist, and by a stoke of good luck we achieved this, so I parked up in a farmer’s field gate and set about trying to find the Northern Lights.
Once our eyes become adjusted to the darkness, you could see faint colours in the sky, so it was time to grab the camera.
Carole was using her phone to capture the colours, which were very visible on the back of it, she was sounding like a kid in a sweet shop, very excited at the show developing in front of us.
Once I had set up the camera properly, the colours in the sky were amazing, nature at its best, the depth of the colours were deeper that my previous experience of seeing the Northern Lights.
I was using a tree as foreground interest, shooting upwards to capture as much of the sky as possible.
A spectacular Aurora
The only downside of being at this location was when a car passed us, the intensity of the headlights was overpowering at times, a small price to pay though!
Northern Lights above Maryport
When we got back home, we saw that social media had gone ballistic with photos of the amazing nights show, a night not to be forgotten for a long time.
Night Sky
Red Squirrels
The last week of the month had me contacting Lorraine to enquire where she had taken some exceptionally good photos of Red Squirrels, she agreed to show me where they were, this are an animal that I have always wanted to photograph.
It was a bitterly cold afternoon that we headed for the location, there were two photographers already present, we introduced ourselves and had a chat about what they had seen during their stay.
I was amazed to see that a squirrel was running around our feet within minutes of arriving, but they are dammed quick little blighters when they take off.
We put some more food out and settled down for the squirrels to appear, in the meantime, I began shooting the little birds that were about, Blue Tits, Great Tits and Nuthatches were the most common birds to see.
Nuthatch Feeding
The squirrels were soon darting from the surrounding cover to grab nuts then taking off, this made trying to photograph them very difficult as you had no idea from where they were coming.
Yum Yum!
It seemed that the longer we were there, the squirrels were becoming more comfortable with us being there, as they settled down to eat the nuts within sight of us, this greatly helped me get a few shots of them.
I,m watching you !
I spent a very enjoyable two hours here, and the time flew by, unfortunately, I had another appointment and needed to leave to be somewhere else.
I will definitely be returning to the location to try and get some better shots of the squirrels but thank you Lorraine for showing me the location and the photography advice during the day.
There you are!
This wraps up my photo journey for January, not the busiest period, or the most adventurous, but it was a start, onwards and upwards in to 2026.
Thank you for taking the time to view this news post, stay safe, and see you on the next one.
Once Christmas was done, we were eagerly waiting to begin our three-day trip to Glencoe, staying at the lovely Kingshouse Hotel. The weather forecast was looking very favourable during our stay, cold with a chance of snow.
We took a leisurely drive up to Glencoe making several stops to stretch our legs, as we came to Loch Lomond the temperature was dropping, and there was a light covering of snow on the higher mountains.
As we drove onto Rannoch Moor, our eyes widened as we saw the view in front of us, simply stunning, ice-covered Lochs, low cloud circulating the mountains, and the sun beginning its long slow decent to the west which was beginning to cast lovely light onto the mountains,
Frozen Loch Ba
As we headed over the ridge to begin the long decent into Glencoe, the “Buckel” was crowned with a circle of clouds which were being illuminated by the afore mentioned sun, I decided to again drive up to the Blackrock Cottage to get a few shots, I’ve been here several times but always got reasonable images, this time though, the light made all the difference, well worth the stop off.
Blackrock Cottage
I was surprised how busy the road was that passes the cottage and then noticed how busy the ski-centre was, the car parked looked full, quite unusual for this time of year.
From here we headed to the Kingshouse Hotel where we would get Carole checked in, and the plan was for me to head out to get some photography of what remained of the afternoon light.
I left Carole with a nice cup of tea and a snack as there was going to be a short wait for her to get to the room.
With her blessing, I head back up the Glen towards Rannoch Moor, having a idea in my head of what I would like to photograph.
As I approached Loch Ba, I wanted to stop here and head out over the moor to get some images of the remaining sun hitting the mountains to the east, these being Glas Bheinn, Leathad Beag and Coire na Meinne, (don’t ask me to pronounce these names lol).
Unfortunately, there was a very large lorry on my rear bumper which prevented me stopping at the road-side layby, this meant that I had to continue onwards until I found a marked layby where I could turn round, this little episode lost me about 20 minutes, which meant that I missed the best of the light.
On my return journey, I managed to pull up in the layby, and I was soon changed and trudging over the moor to try and find a bit of high ground.
It was a rush, but I got the tripod sorted, camera out of the bag, and composed a image of the frozen Loch with the mountains being light with the orange glow form the setting sun.
Glas-BheinnFrozen Vista
During the time I was here I had a short and interesting conversation with a lady who had travelled all the way from Bordeaux in France to spend Christmas in the Scottish Highlands.
The light soon disappeared, and I was surprised how dark it had become in the short time that I had been here, it was nearly dark enough for me to use a torch to re-trace my route back to the car.
I headed back to the hotel to get settled into our room and to look forward to a evening meal, it had been along days travel from Cumbria!
During the evening we discussed our plans for the rest of our stay, sunrise was the same time has breakfast, so something would need to give to make this work, so we decided to get breakfast as early as possible, this would allow me to head out with the camera for 2 to 3 hours, then return, and allow us the rest of the day to get out for some walks and sightseeing.
Day 1
So an early alarm for the next morning, breakfast was devoured and I was heading back up to Rannoch Moor in the hope that I would witness an interesting sunrise, with the plan of locating on the eastern shore of Lochan na h-Achlaise.
After some time, I found a suitable location and got set up waiting for some light to develop, it was bitterly cold, minus 6 degrees, so I was well wrapped up.
There were soon highlights of pink in the sky, which got me pressing the camera shutter button, unfortunately these conditions didn’t hang around long, but the conditions remained conducive to photography.
Lochan na h AchlaiseThe Road along the Moor
After about 50 minutes, I mover further around the shoreline of the Loch to try and find different compositions, there were many small islands between me and the backdrop of mountains, but it was very difficult to get any separation of these.
I persevered, to get some reasonable photos, as well as some detail shots of the frost on the branches and reeds along the shoreline, encased in frozen water.
Shards of IceIce sickles
Not long after this, the sun rose above the surrounding mountains, this produced hard, harsh light immediately, so I decided to retreat to the car and make my plans of where to go now.
As I was driving back into the Glen, I noticed that once the sun rose over the mountains along the ski slope side of the valley, this might hit the Buachaille Etive Mor, I began to think of where I could head too, to create a decent composition.
I decided to go to the Cauldron Falls which are above the Kingshouse Hotel, I have been to this location before, but not for a couple of years, the freezing conditions might create something original.
After a short trek across the moor from the West Highland Way path, I soon found the falls, which were virtually frozen solid, all that remained were several small areas of flowing water.
I took a few images which, at the time I thought were reasonable photos, but suddenly, the sun hit the mid ground and the “Buckle” which totally changed the scene.
All I had to do was press the camera shutter to get some very good images.
Winters Waterfall
Like before, once the sun was up and over the ridgeline, the light became very harsh, so it was time to pack up and head back to the hotel.
After a shower and change, a lovely warm cup of tea which washed down several pieces of shortbread, we decided to head to Glencoe Lochan for a leisurely walk around this lovely area. When we arrived, we were surprised to see that the car park was full, and the walks were well populated, again, a surprise for this time of year.
After a couple of hours at the Lochan we head for Glencoe village to get some supplies and have a wander about.
After this we headed back to the hotel for an early evening meal, and relaxation for the evening.
Day 2
Day 2 set off the same as Day 1 with an early breakfast, then I was off out, this time to the Lagangarbh Hut, otherwise known as the “Wee White House” on the lower slopes of the Buachaille Etive Mor, where I was hoping for more of the same from the day before sunrise, i.e., a nice pink coloured sky.
As I approached the parking area on the main A82 road, I was amazed to find that the layby on the opposite side of the road was already full, and that there were a large number of vehicle’s parked on the rough track leading down to the Lagangarbh Hut, I had to drive past as I could not see any parking places, so I turned round at the mountain rescue helipad and slowly drove back towards the parking areas to try and find a parking place, luckily a very slow drive down the track got me to a spare parking place.
I was surprised to see so many people setting off to climb/hike up the Buckle, there must have been around 20/30 people in total, whilst I was here taking photos, I could follow the early starters as they began heading up the side of the mountain.
The conditions were cold again, minus 6 this morning, with the ground covered in a white frost, the River Coe was frozen over which made for some interesting compositions.
I set off using the foreground as a leading line which included Lagangarbh Hut and the Buachaille Etive Mor, then moving down to the edge of the river to include this as the foreground.
Frozen Landscape
From here I moved further along the river capturing a shot looking back towards the view, and finally I set up to capture a 7 shot panoramic of the whole scene.
Buachaille-Etive-Mor & Lairig-Gartain
I then retreated to the car to drop off the camera stuff and collect my drone; I wanted to try and recreate a shot that I took many years ago when I hiked up to the top of Bienn a Chrulaiste looking across to the Buckle and including elements of the Glen.
I’m not as fit as I was, so hiking up the mountain was out of the question, so I was hoping that the drone would be a easy option for me to capture this shot.
I’m relatively new to using a drone, I am still learning the art of smooth movement of the drone to produce reasonable video.
I got myself in a position on the lower slope of Bienn a Chrulaiste on the Wests Highland Way path, and launched the drone, once at a reasonable height I got it into position to take several images which I would stitch together to make a panoramic image of the view.
The Glen
I again tried to take some video footage with the drone flying along the Glen then raising the gimbal to produce a expanding view of the Glen, unfortunately when I viewed this footage it was very stop – start and jerky which is not suitable to use.
Once I captured the photos that I needed from the drone it was time to return to the car and head back to the hotel.
After a wash and change, we headed to the Glencoe visitors centre for a look around, we found this a worthwhile visit as there are loads of information to view, and we visited the Turf and Creel house, built using the same materials and techniques as those used in the 1600’s.
You can walk around and into the building and provides a very realistic understanding of how people lived all those years ago.
We would recommend a visit to this centre; it is a very informative and enjoyable experience.
Turf and Creel House: Side ElevationTurf and Creel House: End ElevationTurf and Creel House: Interior
On the way back to the hotel we stopped off at the Buachaille Etive viewpoint at the River Coupall, just to take a look around and assess the conditions, what is normally a very boggy ground underfoot was frozen solid, so no need for wellies, but the water levels in the river were very low, so low that there was no flow over the little falls that are normally used as foreground when shooting from here.
What water was flowing was almost frozen solid, much like the Cauldron Falls the day before. I made a mental note to return the following morning in the hope that sunrise would bring some suable conditions.
Illuminated Buachaille Etive Mor
Day 3
As I have alluded to above, this morning’s location was going to be the River Coupall, so after another early breakfast, and de-icing the car I took the short drive to the car park at the head of Glen Etive to take photographs of the Buckle.
Another bitterly cold morning -8 today, so I was well wrapped up against the elements. The best thing about this location is that it is only 2 minutes form the car park, I arrived in the blue hour, so composed my initial shot and waited for the conditions to develop.
The consensus of my photography here was get set up and take photos as the conditions change, so I ended up with many images of the same view, but slightly different lighting conditions, which I would need to select my favourite ones in post.
The Viewpoint in Winter
Once I was happy with the images I had captured at this location, I took a brief walk along the riverbank to see if there were any shots to be had.
Frozen River
It was now time to head back to the hotel and check out as today was travel home day, thinking that my photography was finished for the trip, we packed the car, and set off for the long journey home.
We didn’t get far before we just had to stop, as we came over the ridge and got our view of Rannoch Moor, the view was amazing, low-lying mists, low light, and hoar frost on most of the trees that you could see.
We stopped at the first available layby and grabbed the camera bag, scrambled up the nearest hill to capture the best shots that I could.
Some of the trees looked amazing covered in frost but light by the low-lying sun in the south-eastern sky.
Wintery TreesHoar Frost
An unscheduled but enjoyable stop to round off our winter wonderland trip to Glencoe.
Thank you for finding the time to read this article, until next time, stay safe and well.
We set off on our first visit of the winter to Glencoe which we were eagerly looking forward too as the weather forecast was predicting snow, and misty conditions.
As we drove over Rannoch Moor, we were met with a picture postcard scene, all the mountains had a covering of snow on them, a scattered covering of snow on the ground, with the sun shining and projecting spottled areas of sunlight and shade across the landscape.
The plan was to drive to the Kingshouse Hotel hotel to see if our room was available, if not Carole would relax with a cuppa, a bite to eat and relax for an hour or so whilst I would go out to photograph some locations. At this time of year the hours of daylight in Scotland are getting really short, sunrise being around 8am and it being dark by about 4pm.
Once I was on my way, the decision was a choice of traveling to a specific location, or to work with the conditions that we had. I decided on the latter, the Buachaille Etive Mòr was bathed in sunlight, quite unique conditions, so it was time to use the drone for the first time in anger.
I pulled over and found a suitable launch pad for the drone, I had flown it locally to get used to the controls, but this would be the first time I had used it out in the field.
I wanted to get a photography from hight looking down towards the Buachaille Etive Mòr, and maybe even a view looking down the Glen. I gingerly got the drone into the sky to a safe height where there were no obstacles, I then began to manoeuvre it in to place, when looking at the screen on the drone remote control, the detail was quite impressive. I was soon expanding my flight envelope to capture photographs of the valley, no videos at this time, as I wanted to concentrate on the still images. I even had a go at taking several panoramic images, the plan being that I would stitch these together in lightroom later. I was conscious to keep an eye on the battery monitor for the drone, the last thing that I wanted was to lose it on my first flight.
Snow covered Buachaille Etive Mòr,
After about 40 minutes of messing around with the drone, I landed this and got packed up to head further down the valley. I have wanted to get a decent photograph of The Three Sisters mountains in decent light, but has I got ready for the short walk to get where I needed to be, I noticed that the sun was now dropping behind the Tree Sister mountains, this concerned me as this would put the Tree Sisters in the shade and hide the detail of the cliffs.
I had a short walk along the Old Military Road, as I was making my way along this, I noticed a couple of compositions which included a small stream as one, and a culvert under the old road as another one, taking these photos delayed me even more in reaching my final location, but it was an opportunity I was not going to let go.
The Three Sisters captured from the Old Military Road
As I neared “The Study”, an area adjacent to the Meeting of the Three Waters, which provides a view down the lower Glen, with the Three Sisters being prominent on the left side of the image. There is a huge boulder located on a slab of flat rock which makes an interesting foreground interest when taking this shot. I initially began taking single images of this scene but then progressed to taking a 7 shot vertical panoramic sequence of photos, again, these would be stitched together in lightroom in post processing.
The view from “The Study”
I then climbed a little higher up the slope to look for any other images, I came across a virtually round rock embedded in the grass, so concentrated on this to get another couple of images.
Another round boulder is the foreground when looking towards The Three Sisters
By now the light was going very fast, so it was time to pack up and head to the hotel for a well-deserved hot drink and some food.
As I drove back up the Glen towards the Kingshouse Hotel, it was a little frustrating to see the colours in the sky form the setting sun, although there was no light in the Glen, I presumed that up on Rannoch Moor there would have been some lovely conditions, but, you cant be in tow places at the same time, you make your choices and deal with the outcome.
Once back at the hotel, I was soon washed and changed and ready to sample the culinary delights of the establishment. Post food, it was time to look at the weather proposals for the following morning, up until this time these weather apps had indicated nice sunrise conditions with the chance of mist and sunrise colours. Disappointingly this had now changed to indicate an overcast, dull conditions, with the chance of rain to rub more disappointment into the mix.
I then done, what you should never do, I looked at two other weather apps to seek confirmation of the conditions, one supported the first, but the third still showed possible good sunrise conditions. Carole and I then had a long conversation as what I should do, as sunrise coincided with breakfast time at the hotel, should I get out and rush back to try and catch the late breakfast time?
After, what seemed like ages, I finally decided that I was staying at the Hotel for breakfast, and I would go out after this to see what photographs I could get.
We awoke next morning to a pink coloured sky, this filled me with self-doubt, frustration and disappointment, I had made the wrong call, missed a glorious opportunity. Once back in our room post breakfast, a couple of posts on social media confirmed my missed opportunity mindset, some of the photos were spectacular, this really lowered my enthusiasm levels, why, being here on location and making the wrong choice really hit home.
But life goes on, we were still in the middle of the lovely winter’s paradise, time to give myself a shake, get ready and get outside to make the best of what was there.
I planned to follow the route of the River Etive from the hotel with the snow covered Buachaille Etive Mòr being prominent in the scene, what I needed was some foreground interest to use to support this scene. I was looking for a “S” shape of the river, unique boulders, or frozen foreground to use.
I like to think that I captured some decent images from this exercise, some in landscape orientation and some in portrait orientation, do you have a preference to any of the images below?
The mighty Buachaille Etive Mòr, with the River Etive as foreground
From the banks of the River Etive, then planned to head up above the hotel to the Cauldron Falls, even though the water levels in the rivers and burns were very low, I was sure that with the snow-covered mountains, I could take a decent unique photograph from this location.
What happened next would further dent my earlier disappointment of missing out on the morning’s conditions, as I began retracing my route back along the river towards the hotel, the sun totally disappeared behind a thick covering of clouds.
Now what do I do, by this time I was fully of negativity, do I continue to head to the falls, or change my plans, so I threw in the towel and heading back to the warn interior of the hotel.
Sure enough, by the time we had a warm drink and a short chat, the weather gods were dead against us, light rain began to fall intermingled with whisps of snow, all the time the clouds were getting thicker and the light levels falling. Such a shame, this was fast becoming the end of the day’s photography for me.
40 minutes later and it was constant rain, with very poor light, so we decided to get some wet weather clobber on and head to Glencoe Village for a short walk to get some fresh air, we ended up having a leisurely walk around Glencoe Lochan, a lovely place to visit.
A partly frozen Glencoe Lochan
By the time we arrived back at the hotel, it was becoming dark once again, so all that was to be done was to have a lovely warm shower, get changed and head to the hotel’s restaurant for a delicious meal and a few comforting glasses of wine.
The next morning brought us typical Scottish dreich weather, (miserable wet, windy and bleak), so it was a day comprising of a short drive around Loch Leven, a brisk visit to Kinlochleven, and another early afternoon in the hotel, no photography again on this day.
The next morning was our day to leave and return home, the weather gods were being more kind than the day before, this at least allowed me to capture a could of misty, moody images at Rannoch Moor.
A rather misty Rannoch Moor
The final take away for this short visit to Glencoe was one on a missed opportunity of the mornings conditions, but despite this the image quality of my drone images really surprised me, this was a huge positive for me and will (hopefully) get me using the drone more and more in the future.
Along drive home to look forward too, but we will be back for another stay at the Kingshouse Hotel in between Christmas and New Year, lets see what this brings.
I have an image in my head which I would love to capture at Tewet Tarn, to achieve this I need some early morning light, and a clear view of Lonscale Fell and Blencathra.
First Visit
I first visited Tewet tarn on the 23rd December, when the forecast was promising, and on arriving at the location, there were signs that there would be some good sunrise light on show, and for a short, very short period of time it looked like it was going to kick off, sadly the lovely red coloured sky only lasted a very short period of time, and did not reach the direction in which I was looking.
I was hoping for this light to arrive on the sceneAll I got was flat light with a hint of colour in the sky
I was a little disappointed as I packed up and began making plans for the next weather window.
Second Visit
My next visit to this location was on the 3rd January, again the forecast was looking good, but despite arriving well before sunrise, the conditions did not materialize, no light on show at all, just boring flat light.
I took a couple of photos to record the occasion, but these were not portfolio standard. Still, I was out, and about which is my aim for 2025.
More flat light, this being a long exposure
Third Visit
My third visit to Tewet Tarn was a week later on the 11th January, when the snow gods had delivered a rare dousing of snow in the lake district, along with a block of very cold and frosty nights which had helped the snow to lay and last for a few days.
The forecast was looking good, so I arrived at the tarn well before sunrise to ensure I was I set up and in position for any sunrise light that made an appearance.
Off I trudged up the fell through the snow and ice, wrapped up against the biting cold.
I was a little surprised that there were no other photographers present, but this allowed me free range for my photos.
Looking east the sky was beginning to light up with crimson colours, and here was me trying my best to dig my boots into the slope of the fell to stop me sliding off down the slope.
The colours in the sky were now above my head, all I wanted was for them to reach the distant fells of Lonscale and Blencathra, when my wishes would be answered, please, please, as close as the coloured sky was, it wasn’t just far enough, I was taking photos, but I knew in my heart that they were not what I was looking for.
After waiting for 30 minutes or so for the red sky to travel over the valley, I admitted defeat, again I had been beaten by mother nature, so again, I was packing up with a unfulfilled morning.
The best of the mornings light
As a trudged down the fell towards the Tarn, the sun suddenly broke through the cloud cover casting lovely light onto the snow covered fells of Blencathra and Lonscale Fell, so I stopped, got shot of the bag on my back and frantically raided the bag to get my camera.
The sun really brought the scene to life, we now had contrast, shadows, highlights and depth to the scene.
I headed to the shore of the Tarn to find some ice as foreground interest with me looking towards the sun kissed Lonscale Fell.
Ice and Light
I then noticed a lovely fluffy cloud hanging over the summit of Skiddaw to the north, so I grabbed the shot, a close crop of the summit with this fluffy cloud hanging over it. Only when I processed the image on my computer did I see the people making their way up the fell towards the summit, can you see them?
Skiddaw summit, can you find the people climbing up the mountain?
From this shot I panned round to the west where the sun had risen sufficiently to create some lovey highlights and shadows on the Cumbrian Fells, Grasmoor and Grisdale Pike being the prominent fells in this scene.
The Cumbrian Mountains
For a change, on my third visit to the tarn I was walking down the fell content, and pleased with the photos that I had taken. The snow had defiantly added another dimension to the views, and even the rising sun had made a slight impact on some of my photos.
To cap the morning off, I was sitting in the car enjoying a warm cup of coffee and a sandwich when I heard a tap, tap on the window, I looked round to see a female chaffinch pecking at the rear window of the car, I managed to grab a phone shot of the bird, but as I went for some food scraps of food it flew away. Quite a cure interaction this was.
