Derwent Water - Lake District
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 87mm - 1/80 - f/7.1 - ISO 100
Earlier this year, we went to Derwent Water, a lovely lake near the town of Keswick in the Lake District. Our band of hopeful hikers — my family and I — woke around 5:30 am to make it there for a reasonable time, with a plan that we could have a meaningful time around town, walk around the lake, and make it home in the same day. I can tell you, it’s a long day, but it is doable, and we hope to make this or similar trips a more regular thing throughout the year.
The weather was b-e-a-utiful, although, and I am being picky here, there was way too much blue sky for the photos. The editing alone, trying to make them work — and the dust spot removal — was a challenge. Just a little cloud wouldn’t have hurt.
The shot above captures the day: breezy, almost making us believe we were at the coast at times, without the salty sea air. I like this shot as when editing, I began to play with localised highlights a little, although high contrast appears to be a theme in my editing — maybe a little too much, which can also be seen here. I am yet to decide if this is an artistic choice or a fundamental oversight. I’m leaning towards the first, but I am also considering whether my monitor choice or brightness for editing will need to be investigated.
Unbalanced
I took a bit of time on this photo, and the others that didn’t make the cut, and it doesn’t show. I really struggled with the composition. There is a shot here, I know it, but I believe I will have to return without the family (I feel guilty for stopping too often) and hunt this one down. Remember: no internet peeping for cheating. We aren’t out to recreate a shot — intentionally anyway. I doubt any of these are considered unique; let’s be real. But I do hope that I am discovering my own eye on this journey rather than following someone else’s.
The roots are interesting — good foreground, I’m sure. The view is lovely. The rocks on the “beach” are good too. I’m just not sure how to wrap this one up compositionally. Technically, longer exposures to smooth the water, and better weather with more interesting light, especially golden hour, would improve it. Fingers crossed there’s a next time to figure it out.
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 52mm - 1/60 - f/14 - ISO 100
Still unbalanced
This is a very similar shot to the one above, where I know there must be something there, but compositionally I didn’t find it on the day, resulting in an unbalanced image. Yes, the tree is great, the foreground has something going on, and the view behind is adequate, but as before I couldn’t get the angle right. Probably because this was relatively early in the walk, I didn’t feel like imposing on the family’s time too much as we had a long way to go. Seeing as this is not far from the other image, some dedicated time here might be a good idea, either to scout for the future or actually get the shot.
A short trip to the Lake District, anyone? For science?
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 24mm - 1/60 - f/9 - ISO 100
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 46mm - 1/80 - f/7.1 - ISO 100
This was a happy find on our way around the first half of the lake. The wider shot here was my original composition, trying to capture the feeling of solitude amongst the hills and trees, using the dark grasses as a foreground, and the path leading you up to the building tucked in the middle of the trees. Let’s just say that any photo with sky in would have been preferred with clouds or at least some other interest up there. This one, however, cuts most of it out, so it’s not so bad. Also, softer light would have been preferable on most of them, too.
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 105mm - 1/80 - f/7.1 - ISO 100
I adjusted this into a vertical composition by upping the focal length to 105mm, and I do believe I prefer it. The foreground in the wider version was a little repetitive, so cropping it out and removing the sky helped to focus the interest. I did a little shadow play, darkening the grass below the house — only slightly, but enough to show it was a hill and give it more depth compared to the RAW file, which felt flatter. Boss move if you ask me.
Subject
This isn’t one of my favourites. It’s good enough for context, a nice holiday shot maybe, but I feel it’s lacking a subject. The pier/jetty is a strong leading line towards the centre, but the “beach” could have had more interest, and I struggled with highlights — partly time of day, partly settings. I do like the branches breaking up the sky, which was otherwise dull, but editing was painful as a result, trying to avoid the haloing
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 39mm - 1/80 - f/7.1 - ISO 100
The chosen
This was a great spot whilst walking through a wooded area away from the shoreline. This little piece of holly was basking in the sunshine as if it had been chosen, and the small mounds around it catching the light were brilliant.
In hindsight, the background was too busy. I had to use some local darkening to make the holly pop, which I’m quite pleased with compared to the RAW file. I uploaded this to Instagram and at the last minute cropped it 1:1, which does work better.
In the future, this would be worth more time to get right in camera — maybe changing the settings or lens for more background blur. Not unhappy with this, but there’s room for improvement.
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 62mm - 1/60 - f/7.1 - ISO 100
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 40mm - 1/100 - f/9.0 - ISO 100
This one has some potential. I’m happy with the composition overall, but it really needs some separation for depth. Some fog would be perfect here. I’d also like to see it with softer light. I’ve edited this contrasty — maybe too much — but I was trying to capture what I could see on the day. Fog. Just need some fog, and this will come alive.
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 24mm - 1/125 - f/10 - ISO 100
The branches/logs here provide a great leading line up to the lake, even pulling you around the lake towards the distant view, and possibly back around to the centre again with the geese. Fibonacci? Maybe. I’m not so sure about the branch at the top though. It covers some sky (which was sorely needed), but I feel it’s more distracting than helpful. Remove branch, insert clouds, etc. A couple were having a photo shoot on the right at the time, so editing them out was required. I am curious, though, what the photographer had in mind for their background and how those shots turned out.
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 105mm - 1/160 - f/11 - ISO 100
It turns out this island is very well photographed. As I mentioned, I didn’t expect to capture anything unique, and the more I do this, the more I realise how true that is. When writing this, I looked up Derwent Water to check the spelling, and the Google image search was full of shots of this island — all very good, and many better than mine. I was really happy with this image, but seeing so many polished versions almost ruined it for me. Still, autumn is around the corner, and I think this place will be stunning with seasonal colours, so maybe I can go back. I also have the 70-200mm now, which can add options, and a different time of day should help too. The difficulty here was making the island stand out from the background. I didn’t get enough separation. I tried localised masking, but it was frustrating — too fiddly to be precise. Some highlight boosting on the trees helped a little, though, and I still really like this shot. I can see why so many people have perfected it before me.
Framing
Looking for natural frames is becoming a favourite thing. This one has a distracting branch across it that I didn’t notice at the time, but ignoring that, I like the perspective. It gives the island a hidden, mysterious feel. This angle achieved a bit more separation than the last, too, which was nice. I darkened the yellows to stop them being too distracting — can’t decide if it was enough though. Overall, I’d do this again, hopefully with different colour options available.
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 93mm - 1/125 - f/10 - ISO 100
More frames
I tried this one, getting the V in the background to line up with the frame in the foreground. All it is missing is a subject. The geese weren’t on the clock at this time, but maybe I’ll be luckier next time. A longer focal length might help bring the background closer to fill the frame a bit more.
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 66mm - 1/125 - f/10 - ISO 100
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 105mm - 1/125 - f/10 - ISO 100
Paid actors turned up. Obviously didn’t pay enough though — they could have turned around a bit! But since I was catching up with the family, I wasn’t in the business of waiting around. The image works for me though — more minimalist. If the lake were smoother and the V in the background lined up more centrally, it would improve, but the concept is there.
Does it work?
I didn’t enjoy this image whilst editing it, and even now I’m a little indecisive, but it’s growing on me. I like the light playing through the scene, the depth, not sure about the foreground, but overall I’m enjoying it for now. Minding the edges in the future will help clean them up a bit too.
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 56mm - 1/80 - f/11 - ISO 100
Composition
There is an image here, but I think I missed it. Just walking along the lakeside, there were a few geese swimming with us. I saw the potential, but didn’t have time to arrange them into anything special. Something to spend a little more time on in the future.
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 75mm - 1/80 - f/11 - ISO 100
The final image below was captured from a park in Keswick, one of those viewpoint semi-circles showing you what you could have won on a clear day. I spotted that this building not only looked fantastic, but it was also being framed by everything between me and it. It’s very busy, but I like that—the colours are strong, and the building, which I think used to be a house but is now restaurants, dominates the frame.
Overall, this was a great day out with the family. They loved the walk around the lake and the familiarity of the town, and I got to stretch some camera muscles, coming away with a fair few images I like—or at least like enough to try and improve on in the future.
The full gallery is here, as always, warts and all:
FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS - 105mm - 1/80 - f/11 - ISO 100
