Best laid plans

"Rydal Water" © Richard Evans Photography

I was in the Lake District last weekend - 2 days booked as a birthday treat which we'd planned to spend doing a bit of sight seeing and some photography. I was looking at it as a 60/40 photo trip - my wife was seeing it as an 80/20 shopping trip! That aside we were both looking forward to a couple of days away without the kids.

I've settled into a fairly efficient work pattern that's developed as I've progressed shooting landscapes - it seems to work ok for me an as the saying goes - fail to prepare - etc, etc. It usually goes like this:

Planning:
Plan in a location
Check the sun's details on "Photographer's Ephemeris"
Check the weather on the BBC site (seems the most reliable for the UK's random weather)
Note the times and where I need to be in the landscape
Make sure my equipment's ready

Shooting:
We've covered this previously - tripod, remote release, filters ready to go, plenty of memory cards - fire at will!

Processing:
Check through the Nikon raw files (NEF)
Convert everything to DNG files using "Adobe DNG Converter" (free to download from Adobe)
Process my selections in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CS

It's a work path that seems to be working out and leaves little to chance.
Unfortunately - "little to chance" is sometimes all it takes!

The weekend started with an hour sat parked on the M6 while the Highway's Agency cleaned up a suicide - a bad omen in anyone's book.

Saturday we woke to drizzle and low cloud - not best. The forecast was for something similar so I can't really complain. I'd planned to be at Buttermere for sundown, but the day didn't pan out that way and my wife's idea of shooting a landscape seemed to take far less time that the reality. She lost her gloves, I gave her my gloves to reduce the moaning, she got bored and cold, I called it a day far in advance of the evening light and we went to get something to eat. We never got to Buttermere, so all my printouts of site and sun information went in the bin.

Sunday, determined to stay upbeat - I woke with enthusiasm for the planned shoot at Tarn Hows - (this is my wife's favourite lake so I was optimistic that there's be less boredom. I threw open the curtains to find snow - the weather forecast was for sun and cloud - the plan was screwed!
We decided to go to a site I'd spotted the day before on Rydal Water as it is more accessible and salvage some shooting time. I got to the site, set up and fired off just 12 frames before it scythed it down with sleety rain and we trudged back to the car defeated!

And that was it! The rain was in for the day and only stopped when we got back home - where it was fine. The best image of the weekend is above, I spotted this tiny island and tortured tree from the road and managed to capture it just as the weather turned. On a more positive angle - I spotted so many great potential shots, that I'll be spending a few more weekends in Cumbria as the year progresses.

You can't plan for every eventuality, but by covering those that you are able to, success, while not guaranteed, is more likely!