Rydar

Tucked away in the grounds of Rydal Hall and it's huge gardens, right at the bottom is this great little waterfall and viewing building, it's no secret where it is but it does feel like a secret area by the time you've walked through all the sections of the gardens to get to this spot, a nice dry cool morning was the ideal time to visit on this Autumn day and there was hardly anybody about.

I've posted an image from here already stood right below in the water with a really low perspective, I couldn't decide which one I liked better so I thought I'd share this one too taken from a lot higher up on the bridge which runs over the beck.

Bit of waiting involved with this one as I wanted water movement but didn't want the trees blurring through the exposure so I just had to wait for breaks in the breeze, hardly a problem as just sat here on the bridge waiting with this scene in front of me was hardly making me want to rush anything, a truly beautiful place made even more so by the warm Autumn colours.

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Although not technically the hardest place to get to, this was probably one of the hardest shoots I've had this year by far.

It had taken a while to scramble down the extremely steep and slippy bank here, but amazingly I managed that without incident, anyone who knows me knows that things like that don't usualy go to plan.... I'd taken a while looking around and then setting up until I was happy to start shooting.

All was going well until this point, the shots I was getting all had some sort of what looked like an over exposed area at the top of the frame, no matter what I did it kept happening, it had to be condensation I guessed, I'd taken the filters off I was using and cleaned those, cleaned the lens, put it all back together (really not easy while stood in the middle of a river) and went again... same again!! grrrrr. Dismantle everything again, same again!! and this went on for about an hour in which time I'd dropped my polariser into the river along with all my lens cloths, I'd even ended up sat in the river while bending down to see through the camera.

I've never had this problem ever before and the temperature difference wasn't that great from my camera bag to the outside so no idea what was causing it, really really frustrating, I swapped camera bodies as a last resort thinking it may have been in the camera body itself and that did improve it but not totally, swapped lenses, and even filter systems to a smaller one, I just had to keep going, and keep cleaning until I got what I wanted, I got 2 shots over what I reckon was around 2 hours here, this was the first I was happy with, bit of a nightmare really but if it had taken all day then so be it, not being beaten by a bit of lens fogging, (although I very nearly did give up). It was really nice walking away from the place wet, but knowing I'd got something after all the hassle.

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I was determined this year to make sure I get a good few days up in the Lake District during Autumn as it just didn't work out last year for one reason and another, so it was great to get a few days away here, as usual the weather wasn't the best I could have hoped for but to be honest these days I kind of expect that, and anything else it just a bonus...

This location wasn't really on my to do list on this day I'd planned to shoot the boathouse at Rydal but fot the second day running I found myself in a car park with not enough change for the extortionate ticket machine, knowing how long I take shooting a location and not fancying getting my car clamped or towed off I decided to change location and came here instead.

There are quite a few options for shooting here in terms of where to position yourself, this one seemed appealing and was definitely getting done after I spent a few minutes tumbling down a rather steep, slippy, muddy bank to get to it, grabbing onto a few trees and plants on the way down to stop myself going for an unwanted swim...

Had a good hour or so shooting along this bit of river, which turned out to be really productive. On the way back I decided to wade through the river instead of going back up the bank from hell again, even with wellies on got soaked feet as the water poured over the top in one unseen deep part, I'd like to think it was worth it though, if I don't come home soaked or covered in mud I probably haven't got anything on the camera worth keeping!

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One of my favourite locations in the Lake District for Autumn, there are some fantastic trees around this area which have brilliant vividly coloured leaves that coat the rocks below and add another dimenion to this already beautiful scene.

Getting to this spot isn't the easiest thing in the world to do as it's a choice between wading through some deep moving water or down an extremely steep and potentially dangerous bank, amazingly (for me) I came down the bank without incident and out via the water which for a change didn't come over the top of my wellies which I consider a massive result !

The location didn't dissapoint again this year although I really had to work hard for images due to the lens and filters fogging really badly. I didn't think I'd managed to get much from this composition until I checked back over the days shoot this morning and found this which was hiding away inbetween some shot's i'll end up canning.

As I was leaving here there was a foreign couple on the waters edge that had been leaning arund the little grotto building trying to get pics of the waterfall behind it on their phones, they were trying allsorts and one was close to falling in hanging onto the building... when I got out of the water I said to them you do know you can go in there? he looked a bit blank so I opened up the unlocked door for him, she burst out lauighing and he seemed a bit embarassed but they both thanked me and seemed over the moon they could now get their shots.. you must wonder what the couple were thinking, "why has someone plonked a big stone building RIGHT in front of this beautiful waterfall blocking the view" ?. The mind boggles.

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