I had been keeping an eye on the weather forecast all week and it was looking good for great sunrise conditions at the weekend. I checked the weather again the night before and all signs were pointing to some fog and mist. So, I made a plan. I thought to myself it would be best to head to some areas around the lake and in particular some woodland areas that I have been wanting to capture in these conditions for a long time now. Plan made, alarm set, ready to go.
It’s morning and while I quickly take the dogs out before I leave, I look around at the weather and find it is not what I expected from the forecast. In the distance I can see some low cloud passing through in the opposite direction to the location in my plan. My son joined me on this photography outing, so we discussed our options and decided to abandon the original plan. And so our chasing weather conditions adventure began.
Our first stop was the well known and popular tourist spot, Castlerigg Stone Circle. It had been at least a year since my last visit to this spot, as I often try avoid the busier areas. We somehow managed to be the first to arrive here for sunrise, although it didn’t take long before we were joined by several more photographers. We quickly got setup and started capturing images of the stones and the surrounding areas. I always like to try and find a slightly different composition on popular spots, but sometimes you just can’t ignore the obvious composition. With more and more photographers turning up, I was quite proud of myself for composing the images without people in, only to find my son of all people was in one of my images. I now have two versions of that image, one with and one without my son in it.
I have to admit the views do look amazing in all directions from Castlerigg Stone Circle and it is easy to see why it is so popular. It was looking particularly good on our visit, with the low lying cloud in neighbouring valleys, and the colourful clouds in the sky. At one point the colours were so intense it was like something was on fire.
Already off to a great start, so I look in the direction of the location from my original plan to see if the conditions had changed at all. I could see that it had and there was low lying cloud passing over the lake. Time to make a quick decision on what to do next. My son and I decided to chase the conditions, and quickly got back in the car to head to Manesty Woods.
After finding a parking space on the side of the road, we walked along the road a little to capture some images above the clouds before heading into the woods.
The views looked amazing. I couldn’t wait to see what it was like lakeside or in the woods. Would the fog be dense enough in the woods to get the photo I’ve been hoping to capture? Unfortunately not, we were too late. Still plenty to capture though, starting with my favourite island and boat house on the lake.
We ventured on through the woods and around the lake stopping at compositions that caught our eye. Such a beautiful morning, we literally could have been there all day. We had everything from a fiery sunrise to misty apocalyptic style scenes.
Here is a gallery of the remaining images I captured that I quite like and a couple I can’t make up my mind on.
Should we have stuck to the original plan? Probably, I might have had a better chance of getting the woodland shot I’ve been after. But then again we wouldn’t have captured the images at Castlerigg Stone Circle if we did.
There is a lot to be said about having a plan and sticking to it, something that is generally a good thing to do. That being said on this occasion, even though it was a bit manic at times, it was definitely worth changing. Both my son and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.