This was to be another of those days where I had an initial plan that got completely turned around to a "plan B", and maybe ended up better off for it in the end? I'll never know for sure, but I like to think so!
The day before, the forecast for this day was looking positive with a mix of high medium and low cloud over the Lakes, but fairly clear out to the coast, so a good chance of some golden hour light.
One of the locations I'm hoping to bag a keeper at this Winter is the view from Hardknott Fell looking across to the rather iconic outcrop of rock known as the "Eskdale Needle", with the rugged ridges of the Scafells in the distance.
The late winter light comes right up the valley and sidelights the whole scene, making for some fantastic potential. The only tricky thing is, it's only accessible via Hardknott Pass, which often gets dicey to drive up in winter to say the least. The plan, together with a friend of mine, was to make the fairly long drive around to the other side of Hardknott Pass, and walk up the rest of the way, maybe adding 1hr 20 mins or so.
But, long story short, for me the wintery weather conditions that swept in this morning left me unsure whether even the minor roads approaching Hardknott Pass would be safely driveable, and we are in a lockdown after all.
Quickly ran through some ideas for alternatives to make the most of the forecast, and opted for a repeat trip to Tarn Hows, which would hopefully still have plenty snowfall to give a nice wintery scene without much of a trek or drive. On arriving at the car park in the woodland beneath, the walk up to Tarn Hows was certainly a winter wonderland.
Carrying on around the shoreline of the tarn, with no photo opportunities despite some traces of mist, eventually ended up at the well known Tarn Hows viewpoint. At this point the scene looked rather unremarkable, and the sky did not look hopeful for later light where the sun would be setting, with a fair amount of cloud. However it was shifting, so worth hanging around. I sent up my drone to have a practice doing some panorama shots.
Quite interesting to see the view from an elevated perspective!
A while later, it became clear that an inversion was building from behind over Windermere and moving towards the tarn, eventually building momentum and becoming a full blown inversion where visibility just vanished. Then as if by magic it was partly gone, and it made for some interesting possibilities as the sun shone across various parts of the landscape - time to get the long lens into action.
The mist continued to rise and fall, and I noticed potential straight ahead for the distant view to the Langdale Pikes to possibly develop into a nice panorama if the light continued to play ball. My current vantage point didn't show that much of the Pikes, so I decided to scamper up the hill right to the top. Set up my tripod and waited a while, before capturing this atmospheric panorama with the now golden light catching the tops of the trees swathed in the mist, and a touch of light managing to break through onto the Pikes. Nice.
At this point I was so caught up in trying to shoot with my 100-400mm, and admiring the views in general, I eventually realised I was surely missing a wider angle view of Tarn Hows from further down as the mist encircled one of the iconic tree islands in the centre of the tarn, and the sun threatened to soon dive down into a bank of cloud and leave the scene completely "cold".
I quickly switched lenses and dashed/slid down the snowy bank, camera in hand, hunting quickly for a suitable composition before things changed. I shot off a few frames but wasn't convinced somehow that I'd made the most of what I was seeing with my eyes. Thankfully once I'd got home and processed in Lightroom, this shot worked to my satisfaction.
I like how the composition feels balanced with the left-hand trees and the cloud in the top right, with the cool white snowy shoreline contrasting with the sunlit trees, and the unusual snow pattern on the frozen water makes for another interesting focal point with the gentle mists transforming it into something more special.
So all in all, nowhere near what was expected from the day, even when I arrived here! A pleasing outcome.