Langstrath

On looking back at a favourite day and memorable trip with my father

Langstrath is a valley I had known for quite some time. I had walked down through the valley from the tops on at least two occasions - once with my father and once with my brother, both times having climbed Glaramara which overlooks the valley. So on a photography trip with my father I targeted it as a place to spend a day.

If I recall it was a fairly showery day and I remember at least one short interval sheltering under a group of trees on the path. Eventually we made it to a section where the river became really interesting and I found a fantastic set of birch trees to play with. I had been experimenting with isolating details with my 240mm Fujinon lens aiming to distil aspects of the landscape that attracted me. I set up on two trees - the first was the alternative image which was fairly abstracted.

Then I saw the potential for the main image just as it started to drizzle. My father assisted with a bit of umbrella shelter and I made the main image. We returned in the rain to the car and the inn for something to eat. An excellent and relaxing day out and a fitting end to what was one of my favourite trips away.

When I got the transparency back from the lab and put it on the lightbox the main image leapt out at me. It’s easy to forget just how much the quality of the transparency artefact drove my work at the time - everything was orientated around making the perfect transparency as an alignment of vision, craft and opportunity. There was virtually no post-processing - everything had to be done in camera.