2024 Autumn workshops: Group 2 recap

Each year I run two residential workshops in autumn, timed to coincide with the peak of the colour. Here’s a recap of my second week of workshops this Autumn….

Arrival Thursday evening

This week I had some more familiar faces joining me, in Peter, Neil, and Jerry whose company I always enjoy greatly. They were joined by Colin who I met earlier in the Autumn in my gallery, a lovely jovial lad from Scotland (I won’t hold this against him) I knew this would be another great group to work with which makes my life easy! A great week full of laughs lay ahead, which we got started after introductions with a meal at the Thai restaurant round the corner. As these workshops usually coincide with the Autumn half term week, booking restaurants in the evenings always proves difficult so I was glad to be able to box off the reservations for each of the nights well in advance otherwise we’d have had no chance if we booked on the day.

Day one

As per the previous week, the first morning was spent down at Derwentwater amongst calm and overcast conditions. Owing to the lack of light we began further up the lake from the previous group at Manesty Woods where the colour was still excellent. For the group this would be a challenging start as they were out of their comfort zone somewhat with not having a huge amount of experience shooting woodland, however everyone really embraced the challenge and came away with some really interesting images. It’s a daunting challenge for most photographers who don’t shoot woodland as it requires you to almost bin the compositional norms one would normally apply when shooting the big vista. Once the group got their eye in though, the scenes became much easier to organise.

After a brunch at the lovely Chalet Tearooms in Portinscale we made our way to Thirlmere, a place I’d not photographed in a long time due to the constant road closures on the west side of the lake. I love coming to Thirlmere and it’s nice to have this location available to me again after such a long time away. With conditions set to be socked in for the duration of the workshop, once again the group set about tackling the flat light by searching for close up scenes of the birches which line the shores, and once again I think everyone did a pretty good job in challenging circumstances. On our walk down to the shore we crossed the bridge at Launchy Gill, a lovely set of waterfalls where the colour was holding on well, full of vibrant reds and oranges. The group spent a good hour here exploring the various compositions available, it was just nice to see some vibrant colours instead of a grey sky! It was so nice, I even got my camera out!

We retired to the guest house for a slightly early finish with little chance of a sunset and began getting through some of the whisky which the lads had bought from Booths. I was never much of a whisky drinker though I’m enjoying my slow education into it!

Day two

Each morning over the past 2 weeks I’ve got up well before sunrise and scoured the various Lake District webcams in the vain hope of finding some fog. My trusty weather apps Clearoutside and Windy have consistently predicted fog each day in the Lakes, even though I’ve gone to bed knowing there’d be none, just nowhere near enough humidity. The professional in me of course leaves no stone unturned to try and do the best for my clients so each morning was carefully planned just in case we did indeed get some fog. We headed for Crummock Water with the intention of shooting the weir so we could work on the technique of composing ultrawide angle shots, however it was the walk through Lanthwaite Woods on the way to the lake which proved particularly fruitful. The group stopped at the horseshoe bend in the river to capture some unique images of this rather unusual scene. Having walked past this river many times, for this particular shot to work it requires decent canopy coverage and high water levels, which on this occasion we fortunately had both.

Shortly after this we shot the weir as planned, and once satisfied headed to the café at Buttermere (though not before gate-crashing a wedding party at Jerry’s initially suggested food spot in Lorton!). Suitably refreshed we headed for Moss Force waterfall, it had a good amount of flow in it which is always helpful however we had no such luck on the light front like the previous group had the week before. I ran into fellow photographer Shaun Mills who I’ve known for many years who was visiting with his mates, he joked that his plans were to head to the pub that afternoon and judging by the conditions few could blame him! We however didn’t give in and for the last part of the day headed to the Centenary Stones back at Derwentwater for one last shoot, again trying to best match a suitable subject to the rather drab conditions presented to us. The weather again closed in and we headed for home shortly before sunset, with a spot of processing and a takeaway planned for the evening.

Day three

Day 3 began the same as the previous ones; grey! We decided to give sunrise a real effort and got up at 6am to head to Grasmere before sunrise in the vain hope of fog which once again had been predicted on the apps. Again however, there wasn’t a sniff of it, just leaden grey skies and sadly a disappointing amount of foliage in the nearby Pennyrock Woods. We all felt it was better to head back for breakfast at the guest house rather than flog a dead horse, so that’s what we did after less shooting than we’d hoped for.

During my residentials I’ll always put aside one afternoon to head west to my photographic home, Wasdale. In the winter months it’s an ideal sunset location with the setting sun position directly behind you, allowing the grand mountains to be directly lit, turning that lovely golden red colour. Before that though we headed to Devoke Water, for 3 of the group it was their first time visiting and they were suitable impressed by its moodiness and character. Devoke is probably the one in place in the Lakes that absolutely suits grey misery, so it was an ideal location for this week! The group did really well here, embracing the grey and coming away with some lovely images which captured the barren nature of the location.

We headed to Wasdale fully expecting completely grey clag, however we were pleasantly surprised to find a small amount of light at the head of the valley. It was still largely grey though the hint of light and the rarely-seen flat calm conditions meant that while once again conditions were less than ideal, the group thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.

In summary, the last two weeks have been spent in some awesome company, and make this part of my job as a professional landscape photographer hugely fulfilling and enjoyable. Conditions were less than optimal, but everyone seems to have enjoyed themselves and most importantly learned something.

If it was easy, it wouldn’t be any fun!