I’ve been doing a mammoth restocking exercise over the last two days, cutting boards, printing pictures, making frames. I’ve also selected a few recent or recently rediscovered shots to try out at the markets. Some of them a from my recent trip to Muker in Swaledale where the meadow flowers were so beautiful. One is from an old trip but which I’ve been thinking about printing for a while. I hope people like them.
Printing and mounting really do make the best of a picture. With a nicely made mount using good materials, when you pick it up and look at it there’s tremendous satisfaction. The electronic version is no substitute.
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 Rosthwaite in the Borrowdale valley. I had my eye on a small hill called King’s How. This little top barely registers on the Ordnance Survey map but I reckoned it would have good views and, being lower, less wind.
At work – the camera looking towards Derwentwater and Skiddaw
I started up from the road and soon lost the path in the bracken. It was clear that it wasn’t going to be a crowded place, the path being very vague. The wind was still shaking the trees even this low down and there was plenty of cloud, not good signs. After some steep heather bashing I found the top and two miracles. First, there was a panorama view. Second, by some freak of topography, there was a little hollow just by the top that was escaping the strong wind. By this time I could also see some sun. I decided to stay. I found an even more sheltered spot a few metres down in a little gully – very calm and discreet.
My sheltered bivvy site on King’s How with Skiddaw in the background
The bad news was a very strong haze making everything look milky. Lots of pretty clouds but as it turned out the sunset wasn’t the best and I didn’t get many shots.
The morning dawned wet and cloudy and after poking my head out at 4am, I poked it straight back in again and went back to sleep. I haven’t sorted through the morning photographs yet but I’m not expecting much.
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 catalogue and I’ve found these shots again. Here are a few that are better than I’d realised first time round. I think they give a reasonable idea of the natural beauty of this place.
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.
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. Continue reading →
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 about them.
Now that I’ve found them again I can’t remember what it was about the Stieglitz photographs that so captured my attention. Googling didn’t help, I’d lost the thread. So I just processed them. Here are the first three, taken at a stately home called Riddlesden Hall, near Keighley in Yorkshire. When I’ve done some more I might create a portfolio of them all but I hope you enjoy these.
Anthony Shaughnessy 