Disappointments at Dawn
This week I've mostly been chasing sunrise photography. Unsuccessfully. Surprisingly, it's not been the whole getting up early thing that's been the problem (a challenge certainly when you're tucked up in bed and feel like staying there for another couple of hours), I've actually managed to be out on the moors for around 7AM every day between Monday and Thursday, no, it's the quality of the dawns that have been the problem.
- Monday - the forecast was mist at dawn, if there was any, I didn't see it. Grey skies and drizzle, that seemed to be the theme for Monday.
- Tuesday - another misty start predicted and to be fair there was a bit of fog to be seen over the moors, but it wasn't nice clingy fog rolling over the the moors, just thick dense fog beneath a dark grey sky and none of it had made its way into the woods. Still drizzly too.
- Wednesday - broken cloud, perfect for a vibrant sunrise no doubt. I have to say, I've never seen a more leaden sky in my life. Dull, grey and bleak. On the plus side at least it wasn't raining.
- Thursday - no cloud whatsoever, therefore, no colour, just (unexpectedly) a thick frost to scrape off the windscreen of the car before I could get going.
As a result, my photography throughout the week has been somewhat variable.
Monday
Despite taking a four mile walk around Anglezarke reservoir (at least it only took a couple of hours this time and not four days), I only shot a handful of pictures and the only one I particularly like is this one taken in the woods North of High Bullough reservoir.
Tuesday
On Tuesday I did manage to grab a couple of pictures of the mist, but they're not particularly impressive due to the lack of light just making them look flat and smeary. In the end I decided to explore the woods below Stronstrey Bank at the South end of The Goit. This was actually quite a fun way to spend a couple of hours as they're quite dense and sited on a steep slope. What drew me in here was the emerging autumn colours, they're not too strong yet, but there are hints aplenty.
I'm not entirely sure where this image was shot. I think it was taken close to where I'd parked.
Here's the entrance into the woods. You can just see the top of Stronstrey Bank in the distance.
This is what lay just beyond that wall.
And now I'm in the thick of it. I decided I wanted to get to the other side of that wall as a few of the trees further up the slope looked interesting. However the ground was covered with dense vegetation hiding the horribly uneven surface below it, so getting over there wasn't really the walk in the park you might expect.
Having crossed the breach in the wall, I spotted this arrangement as I made my way up the slope.
This is about as far as I made it up the slope. This view is looking back down the slope, with the wall now off to my left. I seem to recall I was stood rather precariously when I shot this.
Rather than making my way back down the slope, I decided to traverse across it and try my luck getting back down on the other side of the wall as the ground cover looked a bit thinner over there, there was also an impressively large tree standing above the wall, but due to the limited space I didn't manage to get any good shots of it. I might try again another day with the wide angle lens. Instead, I worked my way across to the path that runs up through the woods and comes out at a higher point on Moor Road. While following this path I spotted this creepy looking tree off to my right and picked my way through the marshy ground to get a better look.
This was the view from a bit closer. It's certainly an interesting character, if not particularly friendly looking.
Wednesday
On this day I decided to do something different. I'd heard about the ancient woodland South of Yarrow Reservoir known as Dean Wood and thought I'd do a lap of the reservoir (a bit less than three miles) and take a look at these woods in the process. I thought it might have made an interesting subject for a video, particularly as autumn progresses, but it turned out to be a site of ecological interest and unfortunately (for me) there's no public access. This is a shame. The 1:25K OS map clearly shows paths leading through the woods and there's a boardwalk heading down into the clough that contains it, so it was clearly accessible at one point, but now the boardwalk has a locked gate at the top and we can only peer over the crumbling wooden fence that line the top of the valley and speculate at what treasures lie below. Admittedly any peering should be done with care as the fence is not in the best of condition and there is a sheer drop immediately behind it, so it's probably best not to lean against it. At all.
Against the odds, I managed to grab the following images from the path beside the fence.
Thursday
Thursday was my final outing for the week and, having spotted the slightest hint of mist on the waters of Anglezarke reservoir, I decided to head into the woods that run along the shoreline and see if anything there caught my fancy.
Just a couple of weeks ago, this fallen tree was lying on grass, so it's nice to see the waters have risen considerably since the works on the Heapey Embankment were completed. This was my best effort at catching the slight mist on the waters, although you can barely see it. As I mentioned in the intro there was no apparent colour in the sky on this morning, but the camera has caught a hint of pink from the rising sun (this was taken about five minutes before sunrise).
Moving a little further along the shoreline, this grouping always catches my eye.
This tree and wall combo is becoming a firm favourite of mine. I've shared similar images of it before, but this time I've managed to get a bit further back to fit in more of the upper branches, although this did involve me holding back some branches from the tree to my right during the exposure.
And this is the view from the side of the tree in the previous shot looking back to where I was stood when taking it.
