I had an overnight trip to the Yorkshire Dales last week, camping in mid-Wharfedale above Conistone. I’d previously scouted this area and figured it would be a good bet. It’s a beautiful spot with the stone barns so typical of the dales. I put myself on a shelf above the valley, half way up the hillside. This is where the Dales Way footpath contours along from Grassington to Kettlewell. At this level it is a typical limestone landscape with plenty of exposed limestone pavemen

A mountain wild camp made easy. An overnight trip sleeping out on top of Border End in the Lake District with magnificent views of Eskdale, the Scafells and the Duddon Valley but with little in the way of effort – apart from negotiating traffic on the switchbacks of Hardknott pass. The best views of Scafell are to be had from lower Eskdale. This has the big advantage of letting you park several hundred metres above sea level and saving a lot of leg work to get to your chosen

A circular high level route from Conistone in Wharfedale. Wharfedale View the route on plotaroute.com 9.5 miles 450 metres ascent A did this walk to find overnight wild camping locations but it turned out to be a superb walk in it’s own right. The views up and down the valley are incredible and at this time of year the wild flowers are at their best in the limestone meadows. Unfortunately my camera decided to pack up as I got to the best of the flowers – c’est la vie. Althoug

From Kings How looking south I did my first wild camp of the year a few days ago, in the Lake District. The intention was to camp on one of the hill tops above Honister Pass, where I hoped to get a great view of both Derwentwater and Buttermere as well as a grand panorama of big hills. The weather intervened and a gale on my chosen hill meant I could barely stand up and I certainly wouldn’t be staying the night there. I walked back to the car and down the valley towards Rosth

Mawddach Estuary A couple of years ago I did an overnight wild camping trip to Barmouth, southern Snowdonia. This is a truly spectacular place that so far I’ve struggled to do justice to. On this occasion I messed up by arriving late and not being ready with a good location to camp and shoot. I was disappointed with the results and never bothered to sort and process them properly. With the current weather driving me a little nuts (too much rain!) I’m looking through the catal

Swaledale My last post had photos from a drizzly day in Swaledale. I camped overnight (in a campsite, not my usual bivvy bag) and set my alarm optimistically for 4am, hoping for clear skies at dawn. I was surprisingly asleep when it went off and I poked my head out. Hmmm… – mixed. However, enough clear areas to make it worth getting up for. Out I went, walked up the valley to find a good viewpoint. Not the best sunrise I’ve ever seen but worth being out for. #gallerypost #lan

Swaledale Meadows Each year in late May and early June a natural wonder occurs in the Yorkshire Dales. The meadows come into flower. Throughout the pennine areas you see carpets of buttercups. Nowhere do you see a better display than Swaledale and most spectacular of all are the meadows of Muker, at the western end of the dale. I said a natural wonder but this is very much a man-made landscape, the result of centuries of farming. The other typical, and very photogenic, featur

Some considerable while back I read an article about Alfred Stieglitz. The photographs that were included were quite beautiful and I was much impressed by the range and quality of the monochrome tones. So I gathered together some of my own shots and put them into a Lightroom folder which I called “Stieglitz”. The intention was to process them based on the Stieglitz look that had inspired me. The shots were chosen especially as being suitable for that treatment. I then forgot

I had a washed out day yesterday in the Lake District. I expected some light drizzle but it was just too much. You should never give up hope though and and never presuppose where the scenes will appear. I saw this shot as I was nearing the car, wet and muddy. I could barely see through the viewfinder because it was misted up so I’m happy with the composition. #cumbria #landscape #photography

There is a geologic period called the Devonian. One characteristic of it was the formation of extensive forests, with ferns being one of the early forms of vegetation. If you wander round the woods of Exmoor on the north Devon coast you can imagine that time. This particular shot caught my eye partly because of the play of light and the slender zig-zagging sapling in the centre of the scene. However, I think it is only fully successful when you see it in a large reproduction.

These three shots are not new but I’ve revisited the processing for two of them. I wrote a few weeks ago about how I found how effective it can be to stretch the whites and blacks sliders in Lightroom. Since then it’s been part of my standard workflow. This has prompted me to take a fresh look at some older pictures and that’s what I’ve tried with the two left hand shots above. I’ve shown them with the shot on the right because I think they make a great triptych. To carry on

I talked a few posts ago about our perceptions of image sharpness. I illustrated that post with an example of extreme sharpness – showing the amazing level of detail available even hand-held from my Olympus OMD-EM10 and its tiny and cheap kit lens. A view of Skiddaw shot using the Olympus OMD-EM10 “high grain with pin-hole” scene mode. This time I want to go to the other extreme. The shot above was a result of constraining myself to shoot JPEG only on a day of uninspiring bri

I did a walk on wednesday starting at Castlerigg Stone Circle, near Keswick in the Lake District. The weather was perfect for walking – blue skies and sunshine – but completely uninspiring for photography, especially with hazy air. I gave up any idea of taking good shots so thought I’d try something different. I set the camera to record JPEG only and tried a variety of art effects that the Olympus provides. The idea was to constrain my choices and live with the results, good

It is my view that there are no magic secrets to getting a good photograph and that subject matter and composition always trump technical perfection. However I commonly get clients saying they’re disappointed with the pictures from their expensive cameras and in particular they’re disappointed with the sharpness (or lack of). I thought I’d write some posts on the subject of image sharpness, which I think is more about perception than actuality. Hopefully these will be coming

Visiting the northern Lake District I’d intended to walk round the bottom end of Derwentwater but the lake had other ideas. Heavy rain had raised the level and the paths and fields were now under water. So I tried the other way and walked to the top of the classic climbing crag of Shepherd’s Crag. There I found both fantastic views and beautifully photogenic birch trees. There is a famous beauty spot barely a mile away, known as Surprise View. This has good views over the lak

Llanberis Pass Seeing the Llanberis Pass in Snowdonia in heavy cloud is pretty common. Even on a bright day it doesn’t see much sun, the high valley walls keeping it mostly in shade. It’s a dramatic, craggy place of brooding cliffs and lots of water. I took these shots while the drizzle misted my lens and eventually got fed up with that and gave up. I’ll be back next time I want a location to suit a dark day. I took all shots with my Pentax using a very old manual focus Sigm

By coincidence I exchanged comments a day or so ago with a reader from Helsinki who had posted a YouTube link showing his driving in snow. I responded that with so much snow Britain would grind to a halt. Today we had about an inch of snow and there was chaos on the roads and trains cancelled. My wife’s one hour journey to work turned into three hours. Britain doesn’t understand snow. So I went out and about from home and took a few snaps. You really can’t miss out on taking

The High Street range from St Sunday Crag Nowadays it isn’t often that you get so much snow in the Lake District. Add in clear blue sky and no wind and you have a perfect mountain day. View route on plotaroute.com 7.4 miles, 730 metres ascent, 6 hours. I did a circuit from the Brotherswater car park along Deepdale and then up what could be called St. Sunday Crag’s east ridge. This goes steeply up until the minor top of Gavel Pike and then easily for a few hundred metres to St

I made this trip nearly three years ago but the shots have languished in the catalogue ever since, untouched and unloved. The day was far too bright and in colour the shots just didn’t work. I found them again and realised that black and white would work much better, so here are the results. The location is the southern end of Coniston Water, in the Lake District. Most of the views are towards Dow Crag and the Old Man of Coniston, with the Fairfield range in the far distance

Duddon Valley Ulpha is a small Cumbrian village in the heart of the Duddon Valley. This is a little-explored part of the Lake District. Far from the major centres and without any major peaks but it’s one of my favourite places, full of scenic beauty. On a fine day you can see many major summits in the distance. This wasn’t a fine day but occasional gaps in the clouds showed some fine pointed hills. You can walk here all day without seeing any other walkers. The hills on the e