Lake District in Spring

The Lakes holds a special place in my heart as it is where I took my first faltering steps in landscape photography as a teenager.

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It’s difficult for us to imagine now, but two hundred years ago the Lake District was thought ugly and quite literally terrible! The English Lake District was one of the birthplaces of our modern Western love of rugged and ‘wild’ landscape. Wordsworth, the great Romantic poet and a Lakeman through and through, lived in Grasmere in the heart of this beautiful region. Through his glorious verse he did much to change the public's perception of the landscape.

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This compact National Park is often thought of, by both British and overseas visitors, as the most beautiful region in the British Isles. Surprisingly this iconic landscape is only 35 miles across. Lake Windermere, the largest of the sixteen lakes, is just ten and a half miles long.

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The astonishing variety of landscape in this breathtaking region is unrivalled: from the bucolic beauty of sheep grazing in the Newlands Valley to the stark setting of the Neolithic Castlerigg Stone Circle beneath shapely Blencathra; from the lovely wooded shore of Rydal Water to the awesome Hard Knott Pass and the towering bulk of the Scafell range; from the white ribbon of Aira Force falling through woodland in dappled light to the reflections of white-washed farmhouses alongside tranquil Watendlath Tarn.

We will be based in the south central Lakes, close to Tarn Howes and Lake Coniston. There a numerous great locations close by - such as the beautiful River Brathay, the abandoned slate workings in Little Langdale, Blea Tarn with its iconic view of the Langdale Pikes, Loughrigg Terrace with its wide open vistas of mountain and lake and the wild mountain scenery of the Wrynose and Hardknott passes.

 

Over six full days of photography I will take you to many of my favourite locations and help you to make the most of the opportunities, tutoring you not only in technical matters – such as exposure and filtration – but also helping you to see with a keener eye in order to make more compelling compositions.

 

To maximise the time spent on photography we will concentrate on locations within an hour’s drive (or less when walking) of our base.