Jolly Nice Day in the Lake District

Day 2 of the landscape photography course in the English Lake District. Today was spent in Eskdale. The forecast was for good weather in the morning and rain after lunch. We started with Stanley Ghyll Force waterfall to avoid the crowds. The rocks were a bit slippery but with a bit of care good shots were taken.

From here we returned to the car and made for the Hardknott Pass as the sun was shining. Then we walked up the steep slope towards Border End to a small pool of water that reflects Coniston Old Man across the valley on a good day. Unfortunately, Coniston stayed in the clouds but it was still a good view and made for some interesting shots. Then down to the Pass and some shots to the valley below, very nice light in the valley.

It was closing in a bit so we drove back to the Hardknott Roman Fort which dates back to about 120AD. Lots of pattern pictures with the remains of the walls and nice views to Eskdale below and cloud-capped Scafell in the other direction.

It was lunch time so we went down to the Brook House Inn in Boot where we had a hearty lunch. There was some brightness now so we went to Devoke Water for tarn and boathouse images.

We finished the day with shots of the River Esk in Boot. Not a lot of light but this added to the shots for Alastair, Yann and Chris who all wanted to try Neutral Density filters in order to use very long exposure times. Yann was using a 10 stop ND filter to give 30 to 60 second exposures for ‘milky water’. Very interesting effects.

Tonight we returned to the Brook House for dinner, and very nice it was too. The Darkest Ennerdale beer was good while it lasted. Then it was a walk along the road for 7 minutes in very light drizzle.

It was a good day and all took good photos of quite varied subjects. Tomorrow we go to the coast near Ravenglass. Dave