March is here and about time for the first trip of the year up to the Lake District. A place which I have not ventured up to since the summer of 2010. The timing wasn’t exactly perfect with storm Gareth on its way across the Atlantic to create some pretty epic weather across the week we were up there. This did not deter me tho from taking every ounce of my camera gear with me, traipsing it around the countryside through wind, rain and hail all in the name of getting that one perfect shot.

hail and rain falling over a snow capped hill - 70-200mm F/4

Very quickly I learned that my landscapes were not one of my strong points, and showing the scale of the hills and lakes around me was proving quite hard work with a wide angle lens. I found that using the 70-200mm F/4 lens the best on the fly lens to capture the landscapes, as it was able to compress the image and show the scale of what was around me much better than the wider lenses in my bag. I also found that having time to stop and set up a tripod when with other people intent on walking was a no go so the tripod stayed in the bag throughout the trip.

I also found getting an image I was happy with, or found interesting very difficult no matter how hard I tried. I came to the realization over the course of the week that I don’t find landscapes as fun to shoot as other subjects, and I even began to resent lugging around all my gear, only to use either the 70-200mm F/4 or my trusty 400mm F/5.6.

With the weather being so changeable, I had to to take my chances where I could between the hail storms, and rain to grab a few images along the way.

Angry i’i just got hailed on’ face - 70-200mm F/4

Wish tree 24-70mm F/2.8 https://urnabios.com/the-fascinating-cultural-trend-of-wishing-trees/

I came across a ‘wish tree’ which upon further investigation is apparently a bit of a cultural tradition that I had not heard of or seen before. Subsequently I came across at least one of these trees on my walks in various parts of the lake district over the rest of the week.

Sheep are, as I found out, quite hard to photograph and make look interesting. I tried a number of times to take shots of the sheep directly in-front of the house we were staying in, but all the images were pretty dull and uninteresting. Luckily I was able to get a couple of quite contrasting images below. One was taken during a hail storm, with a lone sheep taking refuge from the storm in the trees, and the next was a shot taken from the side of a hill, looking down to the valley below as the sheep grazed on the perfectly manicured grass around them.

Seeing sheep through the trees - 70-200mm F/4

The Image above is an example to me of just how hard I found it to capture minimalism in a landscape. I found that getting a shot of uniformity or simplicity in a countryside landscape really hard to do, due to the busy nature of most scenes in-front of you. With the strong winds keeping things interesting, I spent most of my time in the forests and woods, which were for the most part more sheltered to walk through. The issue with this was that light, or rather lack of light made getting usable, interesting images hard to come by.

One example of how dark and gloomy it could get in the forests was when I stumbled across this piece of artwork, hidden deep in the woods like some prehistoric creature climbing out of the ground. In this instance the low light helped in creating an eerie, gloomy atmosphere that suited this piece very well.

Once the skies cleared, It gave more opportunity to capture the varying woodlands around the lake district.

As well as the forests and woodlands, more and more, I was finding myself taking just the 400mm F/5.6 out with me to save on weight and the idea of lugging all my stuff around for the sake of a landscape shot was becoming less and less appealing. because of this, I found myself photographing the wildlife of the area with the small birds that inhabited these woodlands becoming a staple of this. It also brought me to my new goal of photographing the elusive red squirrels that made these woodlands their home.

I remember seeing Red squirrels briefly in 2010, before my love affair with the camera took hold of me, so I really wanted an opportunity to see if I could get a half decent shot of one in the wild.

I did some research and found that Grizedale forest was a good starting point. Sadly 0 squirrel sightings were to be had here on both of the occasions I visited so I moved on to a place called Dodd’s wood. From the details I could gather, the best place to view them was up at the Osprey viewing platform where they have feeders put out for the squirrels. Sadly it was too early for Ospreys (April onwards), so no chance of seeing them, but I still headed up there. I reached the viewpoint and found……absolutely nothing. To my dismay there was not food out, and no sign of the now elusive red squirrel anywhere.

I decided to keep on walking and took the path back down into the woods and followed it from there through the ever darkening woods. I was beginning to lose hope of photographing anything at all when I came across some bird feeders by the side of the path with a bench opposite. So I took a few images of the birds flitting around the feeding station, capturing a Ciskin, which I had not even ever seen, let along photograph before, so the day was not a total loss for my by this time but the dream of getting a photo of the squirrels was diminishing as fast as the light.

I hung around taking a few more photos of the birds as they took their turns at the feeders before trudging back to the car when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, finally entering stage right was what I was waiting for…

I sat down with my 400mm F/5.6 Lens about 5 foot away from the feeders on the floor, and tried my best to get as many usable shots as possible as the red squirrel gingerly came and went, watching me very closely as it did so. I tried to keep the camera steady without tripod, with a shutter speed of around 1/800th of a second, while trying to keep the ISO down as low as possible (it hovered at around ISO 800-1200 which the 5D MK III can handle very well). I Kept the ISO on automatic so any change in lighting would be compensated for but kept a close eye on it, as I didn’t want it going any higher and creating too much noise within the image.

Below are some of the best images I took. I was very happy with the amount of images that came out and was a prefect end to my lake district adventure.

FIN

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