Cumbria – New Gallery

Reading about Cumbria holiday breaks on a website recently, I came across all the exciting things you can do there…like, boating, horse-riding, climbing, mountain biking through the forests, visiting a racecourse, paint-balling,  exploring a via ferrata, zip wire ride, the list is endless. Now I can totally engage with the idea that you need some activities to take part in on holiday in addition to walking the fells…when my kids were young and the rain came down, that involved a visit to the Pencil Museum or slate shop and cafe but, if zipping down a wire floats your boat, who am I to criticise? (sounds exciting, actually)…but what the website didn’t mention at all was the fantastic scenery, some of the best and most spectacular in England and that’s what I go to Cumbria to see and try to capture with my camera.

I have tried to combine visits to Photographic Clubs in Cumbria with a short photographic trip…of course, every single time I go, the rain comes down…not surprising when you find the top three wettest places in England are not in Saddleworth, as I feared, but in Cumbria. So, good waterproofs, stout boots, a sense of humour and a waterproof cover for the camera are all in order. Often the weather is very changeable and so I try to be ready for that few seconds or minutes of dramatic light when the sun suddenly breaks through the clouds and shafts of sunlight move across the landscape.

Today, I’ve created a new gallery of images of Cumbria collected on short breaks over the last couple of years, all of them taken either just before, just after or even during rain. The Wasdale pictures were taken in driving rain when there were no other people about. Some of the pictures are available in other blogs on the website, but this is the first time they have been brought together into one place, along with some new work processed for the first time today.

Below is a selection of images from the gallery page and here a link to the Cumbria Gallery