What to see in the Lake District

Oct 26, 2017

We decided to venture up North and spend a few days in Keswick exploring the Lake District, it seemed like it might be fun.

The Lake District had never really held much appeal to me. I knew it was meant to be pretty but that didn’t prepare me for just how photogenic the Lakes really are. Everywhere I looked was a mountain in brilliant autumnal colours or a beautifully reflective lake just begging to have a camera pointed its way. I found it difficult at times to just stop trying to capture images and take a second to enjoy my surroundings in the moment. It really was quite impressive.

On our journey up, we decided to visit a place in the middle of the North Yorkshire Dales called Keld which has a few really nice waterfalls. Little did I know that apart from mountains and Lakes, the Lake District is also covered in falls from small burbling brooks to mighty great falls like Aira Force. That was OK though because the drive through the Dales on the B6270 was absolutely beautiful – a bit nuts, but a wonderful drive.

All around the lakes are beautiful woodlands which, in late October, were showing off their autumn colours rather splendidly. Viewed from up a mountain, the trees gave a fantastic patchwork of colour to the already breathtaking scenery. Up close, many of the trees looked ancient and covered in moss – specially the ones near the falls. These made interesting photographic subjects in their own right too.

Once I started to look into photography in the Lakes, I quickly learned that there are a few ‘must have’ shots which seemed to be great places to try and put my own stamp on an image that has already been captured countless times, just not by me! And so it was that on the first morning of our stay in the Lakes, I was up before dawn (not that early in October) and before my impending ‘full cumberland’ breakfast, standing on Ashness Gate Jetty waiting for the sun to come up and light my first pre-planned shot of the break.

I made the decision to take a real tripod on this trip rather than a travel version and I am very glad that I did although I think that I might have to add a carbon fibre set of legs to my wishlist, as lugging my heavy old tripod up the hills day after day certainly took its toll on my poor old body!

Throughout the few days that we spent in the area, both me and my camera equipment got properly soaked but that hasn’t had a negative effect on the experience. Instead it has made me certain that I want to return to the area if only to experience the mountains on a sunnier day or maybe catch a brilliant sunset across one of the lakes.

I have a list of shots prepared already that I wasn’t able to capture on this trip, so look out Lake District, I’ll be back!

… oh, by the way, this image made the WexMondays shortlist, so I was pretty chuffed
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