Lodore Falls Woods

On making an image that took time to appreciate

On the Saturday of the long weekend in the Lakes with my dad we split the day across two locations. After breakfast we headed out to Latrigg – a place I had taken my young son to the top of a ‘mountain’ with my dad a few years before on a family holiday. He had punctuated the climb by shouting ‘sheep poo!’ and jumping on the aforementioned natural feature every few yards. I did remember however that it could have a perfect view over Keswick from the top. We had spotlighting conditions but with a long wait between performances so there was little to do other than find a composition, set up with the TK and wait. And wait I did until eventually – after an hour – the perfect light rolled across the scene and I made the alternative image. We moved on to Langstrath on Saturday afternoon which I have already covered.

On the Sunday we drove up to the woods above the Lodore Falls Hotel. It was wet! I remember wandering around quite a bit trying to find something I liked and struggling. Eventually I set up on a lovely young tree against the water which seemed to be reaching out to a nearby fern. I liked the idea but held back the sheets initially and then struggled to use it when I did get it back because the Epson film holder truncated the image slightly so I could not scan it without losing the very top of the image – a key part of the composition. It was a lesson to give myself a little room around images when there are tight critical compositional features like that. Tim Parkin’s drum scan rescued the image and it made it into my Alchemy portfolio a while later.

Another classic case of the feelings at the point of making needing to recede before it can be fully appreciated. My dad though enjoyed himself looking for pictures to paint and eventually we headed down to have lunch in the hotel.