Skelwith

Ahhh this tree, I hate this tree. Or rather I did hate this tree.. purely becuase it's such a great subject and I've found it so difficult to shoot on so many occassions and I have never got any images of it I've liked, until this one.

It sits leaning wildly and is balanced precariously on a steep slope in a slate quarry (Hodge Close) in the Lake District, as soon as I saw it many trips ago it just cried out to be shot but getting an image of it I've found to be a total nightmare, it either blends into the background too much, isn't lit right, or it cuts into the skyline over the mountains, or depending which way you shoot it you end up with distracting white buildings in the scene which take away from the subject, I've shot it with about 4 different lenses and still nothing made me happy.

This day got here and I'd pretty much given up on getting anything with it, I'd tried again with the wide lens as there was some nice light but yet again it seemed to be sticking 2 fingers up at me so I got some shots at other locations nearby, as I was walking back to the car I was quite a way from it, I stopped and looked at it as it was being lit beautifully with the low sun head on, the day had been really moody and the sun had just broken through the heavy clouds picking out all the detail on my nemesis tree.

The conditions looked perfect to get separation in the shot so I got down low and used the 70-200 for this image, which I really like, at last.

Even in the processing stage it proved to be a complete pain in the backside as the Autumn colour in the background I found a little bit distracting so I've gone for black and white which I think suits it a lot better. For such a simple subject it's certainly made me work to get one image.

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Quarry tunnels at Hodge Close Quarry, looking out into the main flooded quarry.

Well, what a day I've had today. Me and my good friend Tony Higginson decided to leave Preston at 6am and head for Hodge Close and Holme Fell for...