I do love a cover...

This month I get the cover on Lakeland Walker magazine with another winter shot of my trusty model/mountain guide Paddy Cave (http://www.mountaincircles.com) We did this shoot some time ago when the Lakes still got winter snow - oh, hang on, I'm looking out the window and would you believe it, 2018 actually has some snow again!

It's time to get back out on the hill and shoot winter covers for next year. Helvellyn and the Red Tarn bowel are pretty reliable for holding the snow and giving you great backgrounds but the real trick to a successful cover shot is a red jacket - never go out without one.

Actually I did a bit better than just the cover - the full pager on the gear section is also Paddy - different location, different jacket, but the principle's the same - make the figure stand out from the background.

Don't push me, 'cos I'm close to the edge...

...Striding Edge to be exact. You maybe spotted that already.

Yesterday I took fate by the short and curlies and headed up Helvellyn with my good pal and long-suffering, yet curiously ever-willing "model" Paddy Cave, in spite of an iffy forecast that could go either way.

Run out of time

This weekend, the weekend of January 26th/27th 2013, has been remarkable for weather. On Friday evening it started snowing, so much so that people were stranded in their cars, unable to get home, with roads closed and all the rest of it. This should be a great opportunity to grab some winter sports images but there's a problem.

Bothered at the bothy.

It's another TGO assignment this week and the question is, can I be bothered to haul all my flash kit up the side of a mountain, in the snow, at this time of the morning? Of course I can.

It's all Tan Hill from here

The Tan Hill Inn is the highest pub in the land at 1500ft and has a certain reputation for eccentricity. Well, when you're that far off the beaten track I guess anything goes! Anyway, the Tan Hill was my rendezvous spot for a recent assignment with TGO magazine for a winter walking feature - which is on the shelves now (March 2012). Weather-wise things were looking up. Early morning sun, reasonable forecast, good snow cover on the tops, it was all good.

Take cover!

In my last post I made the point that photographers have to be ready to make the most of whatever opportunities present themselves and this cover shot is a case in point. It's the current TGO front cover for March 2012 edition and was shot in December, just days before Christmas. I awoke to a bright, shiny sun filtering through my bedroom skylight which was covered in fluffy white stuff; Snow, and plenty of it. This was not a day for hanging around in the office but I had to do the school run first! On the way back I rang round to see who was at home and willing to come out for a couple of hours to play - but got no answers. It seemed everyone was already out, or working, or away, or asleep??!! I left some messages and resigned myself to getting out anyway and maybe trying a few time-release self portraits or something.

The long walk home

It seems like just yesterday we had full snow cover and great ice here in the Lakes but how quickly it disappears. A couple of days of warm southerlies and it's back to wet and windy, grey and drab and not a white patch to be seen on the hill. Which means that when conditions are here you got to get out there and shoot, right now.

Ice, ice, maybe?

Well, this was going to be interesting. My plan involved bribing a top ice climber to go out on a freezing, dark night to solo some steep ice, half way up a mountain so I could experiment with the concept of "lightpainting" a crag on the half-chance that it might produce an interesting shot.