Trips - Part 4: Borrowdale Morning Walk
Ann and I decided to arrive at the Borrowdale Hotel a day early, before the workshop gang was to meet, for a number of reasons - in part to have a rest day before we started a busy week, in part to have some time to clean gear after a couple of weeks of intense traveling, and in part in case we needed to do something like laundry (nothing a few things in the bathroom sink didn’t take care of). We arrived at mid-afternoon on Sunday and the gang wasn’t supposed to meet until 6pm-ish on Monday. We showered, had a good dinner, slept in a very good bed and slept in (for us), with a good breakfast to start our day.
Our room is the one beneath the peaked roof above the entrance way.
One of the nice things about the Borrowdale is that it’s rather close to Derwentwater, a lake, and there are trails to the lake and to a nice woodland area, Manesty Park. The trails start about 100 yards south of the hotel, on the other side of the street. . . .
. . . and you can see looking in the other direction, it’s surrounded by hills, forest and farmland.
We decided that this was a rest day and only brought the baby Leica point-and-shoot cameras with us. No tripods, no lugging a backpack . . . we didn’t even bring a water bottle. It was going to be a leisurely walk to explore the area and if we found anything to photograph, we’d do it.
You shouldn’t be surprised that it turned into a photo excursion. But quite a relaxing one, where there was a spirit of experimentation and freedom from the pressures to make a “Photograph.”
Call it play, practice or study, but it’s all the same - get out, enjoy exploring the environment and enjoy working with the camera.
I don’t think any of these images are spectacular, or even particularly good. However, I can look at each of them and see what I was thinking of while making them.
And you learn from that process, see what works and what doesn’t. Why might I have done this? Or should I have done that to get the feeling I wanted to from the image.
As you can see, there were grey, overcast skies. No brilliant light to play with, little to add to an image other than what was there in front of you.
The best part about this stroll was that every quarter mile or so, it seemed that the landscape changed significantly enough to give us different subject (even if slightly) to work with.
We were taking our time, moving along, and both of us were thoroughly enjoying ourselves.
We were in no rush (other than what our bellies and bladders might demand of us later) and would often move back and forth along the trail in certain areas.
One fortunate benefit of the walk was that it introduced us to several of the environments we would come across during the workshop.
I’ve always loved a good walk through the landscape, but it seems different when I have a camera with me. I look more, I notice more and I see things differently with a camera in hand, even if it’s a small one like the baby Leica, or even a phone.
We had been tracking the weather forecast and, surprisingly, it good fairly good. Well, good if you mean good as not pouring a lot. The not so good was that the forecast said it was going to be cloudy all week, which meant grey skies. So I figured I’d make some broader landscape images to see just how much of a trouble the skies were going to be - I would check them out later in the room after downloading them to look at larger.
I definitely was pleased with the trees in England. Although we were there just a bit past peak, there was enough leaf and color to still make the trees interesting, and one was able to see their structure more this way.
What surprised me the most was how colorful the hills are. Brown bracken fern, green bushes, and yellow . . . I don’t know what. They weren’t going to be blank pine forests or bare rock, that’s for sure.
And practicing image-making is always valuable. It helps you remember little things like trying to keep the crown of the tree from breaking the horizon line of the mountain. It’s a little thing, but can ruin an image if you don’t think to think about it.
We eventually made it to Manesty Park and enjoyed our time there. We both wish we had had an opportunity to get back (with better cameras), but it was not to be.
We just have to live with these images to remind us of what a great place it was to explore.
It was gratifying to know that we were likely to see some more color during our workshop. Some of the trees may have been past their prime, but not all of them.
So we wandered and explored for a couple of hours at a very leisurely pace. Sometimes stopping to chat or to photograph, other times enjoying the surroundings in silence.
Eventually, we headed back the way we came, crossing the river that would take us back to the hotel.
A bit farther down the path we could see the Borrowdale in the distance, nestled beneath the valley walls, a sign that our pleasant late-morning excursion was coming to an end.
Once we got back to the hotel, we traded in our hiking boots for more comfortable shoes and headed downstairs for a bit of . . . refreshment in preparation of later meeting our workshop colleagues.
Even at the hotel, there were images to be had. The bimobil was parked in the back, and from its location we could see why slate seemed to be everywhere - it seems to just fall off the mountainsides.
Also, the view from our room wasn’t too bad either.
When I was scouting the property I found what I thought would be the perfect location for for parking the bimobil. Fortunately, about an hour after we had checked in, it opened up and I parked the bimobil there for the week, nice and out of everybody’s way. You can see the location fat the red arrow below.
And as you can see, it was the perfect location for the bimobil to take a breather. Sometimes, scouting a site actually works out.
The day was just what we needed. A nice, several mile light hike to get the blood and the photography eyes flowing, a nice afternoon beer, and an evening of meeting all of our workshop colleagues and starting our evening dinner routine. All in all, it was a smart move on our part to have a planned rest day before the workshop started.