The Murky Moors
This past week has been full of mixed weather, including some much needed rain. As such, it made a nice change to head out onto the moors one drizzly and somewhat windy afternoon a few days ago. I was wearing my reliable waterproof jacket, which was more than adequate for the conditions, although as it was just a little drizzle, I foolishly didn't think to wear waterproof overtrousers, so my trousers, their DWR having long since given up being WR and seemingly not particularly D either, quickly became soaked through and over the several hours I was up there, leeched water into my boots. I may now have trenchfoot.
All that aside, it was great to be back out in these wild conditions, something I haven't done in ages, pretty much having the moors to myself as surely no one else would be daft enough to be out in these conditions?
The battered old OM1 (which I bought quite cheaply as it was very used and pre-battered) was the camera of choice, paired with the even more battered Olympus 12-100 f/4 that I've probably had for more than 10 years now and was a stalwart companion in many a wet and wild Lakeland mountain storm back in the day. In addition, a screw in B+W CPL was used for most of these shots, although I noticed it was tending to mist up behind the filter causing a strange light coloured vignette on some images, so it hasn't been used for everything.
End Of The Gorge
I followed the moorland path that runs above Black Brook, thinking this would be the most fern-free route. I was wrong about that and every step brushed water from the ferns onto my trousers and jacket, probably depositing more water on me than the drizzle, although that was having a good go at some points.
Eventually, this path drops down join the river path and runs under this tree which kind of marks the end of the river gorge.
The Tree At The End Of The Gorge
A closer look at the tree. Lots of colourful clumps of heather are currently surrounding it.
Round The Bend
Here, I've temporarily crossed to the other side of Black Brook at the point where it leaves the valley and bends into the start of the gorge.
Waterfall In The Valley
Now for more wading through head height ferns. The path here is narrow and crumbling into the river. With the ferns it's very hard to see where you're putting your feet, so there's a high risk of falling in. Fortunately I didn't do that, although by this point my feet were so wet it probably wouldn't have made any difference.
Colourful Boundaries
The river marks the boundary between Heapey Moor and Anglezarke Moor and it's interesting to note that practically all of the heather is on Anglezarke Moor and all of the ferns are on Heapey Moor.
You Call This A Path?
The path that leads through the valley is questionable at best. Some of it is currently submerged in the river, recently some of it has collapsed into the river and then there are section like this which suffered rock falls many years ago.
Great Hill
Eventually the valley starts to flatten out and Great Hill looms into sight. This was my target for the day and at this point it's still a good mile of potentially boggy moorland away.
Riverside Tree
Looking towards Anglezarke Moor (as indicated by the heather), this tree stands beside the river as the view begins to open out.
The Windswept Trees of Great Hill
This short row of trees just East of Great Hill Farm always fascinate me, they look so shaped by the wind.
Great Hill Farm and The Riverside Woods
This is taken partway up the side of Great Hill from a little used path that I don't think many people know is there. The two large trees on the bottom left mark the former location of Great Hill Farm while the longer row of trees along the middle of the frame mark the course of Black Brook as it emerges from its source near Great Hill and makes its way towards the valley (the purple clad hillside from previous shots can be seen on the far right of this image).
Side note; there were no views to be seen at the top of Great Hill as low clouds rolled in as I approached the summit. Curiously they withdrew again once I'd left.
A Stranger Is Sighted
Apparently I wasn't the only idiot out in these conditions and this individual was seemingly even more dismissive of the weather, having braved the bottomless bogs Anglezarke Moor to reach Round Loaf. Hopefully they got out of there without losing a boot to the bog gods.
Heapey Moor
Taken from the foot of Great Hill, this again shows the trees that line the early part of Black Brook. You can also see the trees at the Drinkwater's ruins on the right. This give a pretty good illustration of the difference in vegetation coverage between Anglezarke Moor (all pinky red heather) and Heapey Moor (yellow grass and ferns). It's interesting how each type of coverage (more or less) abruptly stops at the river.
Tree at Drinkwater's
Taken from the path at Drinkwater's and looking across Heapey Moor towards Anglezarke Moor.
Bonus Video
Last week's post contained a number of shots of heather along Black Brook. The final group in that post were taken with the OM1 and on that occasion I decided to video the river as it was flowing fast and looked and sounded quite impressive. As I hadn't planned to make a video at the time, I just had the camera with me and no additional equipment (tripod, better mic, etc), so I just gradually scrambled up the course of the river as far as the valley beyond the gorge, shooting interesting features handheld as I went. It turns out that over the short 3/4 mile section of river, there's an awful lot of waterfalls, rapids and pools, certainly more than I'd noticed on previous visits when I was only paying attention to not falling in.
With the excellent stabilisation on the OM1 (combined with the OIS in the 12-100) the footage looked pretty solid, but for some shots I've added extra stabilisation in post using Davinci Resolve's tracking features.
I shot it all in the log profile on the OM1, planning to grade it later using my usual node based grading. Unknown to me at the time though, there's no direct support for the OM1's log profile in Resolve. OM Systems do provide a LUT, but this doesn't help if you want to convert to Davinci Wide Colour Space and grade it in that then drop back to REC709. Apparently it's not a proper log profile, having a relatively flat gamma. Googling for advice on how to deal with this returns (thanks to Google's rubbish AI) incorrect information, telling you to use a gamma curve that doesn't exist, but I eventually found a combination of settings that seems to give pleasant and consistent results across all of the footage.
The other issue was the sound. I'd recorded all of the video using the in camera mic, but this picks up horrendous amounts of wind noise, so I went back a couple of days later when the river was still in full flow armed with just a shotgun microphone and a pocket audio recorder. I suspect I looked a little odd standing there stock still pointing the mic at the river, but it was worth it as the video sounds so much better.
So if you're interested in watching 11 minutes of narrative free river footage, here's a link...
youtu.be/EZFD1VjOcq4
