Peak Practice by Kevin Gibbin

The easing of lockdown in the summer of 2020, for most people, was an opportunity to get out into the local countryside with some decent boots and suitable clothing. Kevin also included his camera with his packed lunch and headed off into the stunning landscape of the Peak District National Park. Planning trips out with both friends and family, the results are an impressive collection of images from some of the iconic locations of the area.

Since the easing of lockdown, I have managed to achieve four separate trips into the Peak District; three purely for photographic purposes and the fourth taking two of my granddaughters walking for the day. On each occasion I managed to come away with some acceptable images. Hopefully practice will eventually make perfect! Living near Nottingham, many parts of the Peak District, particularly the Derbyshire parts, are within a drive of about one and a half hours so I suppose I have little excuse not to manage more trips! Armed with a bit of local knowledge, reference to the fotovue book on the area by Chris Gilbert and Mick Ryan and a 1:25,000 OS map, I was able to plan what I wanted to achieve from the first three photographic trips. The planned walk was along Stanage Edge, with which I was already familiar, so I took a camera, something I would do invariably anyway.

The first two of the three photo shoots were to Higger Tor, a rocky outcrop below and to the east of Stanage Edge, not far from Hathersage. These required an especially early start to be in place in time for dawn; on August 8th this was at 5.35 am so it required an early start – up at 3am to allow travel time plus getting into position – and I’m not exactly an early bird!! On my second visit, this time with a great friend, Trevor Burton, from my local photographic society, Nottingham and Notts, the hour was a bit kinder – dawn at 6.02 am.

Dawn light Higger Tor (Image 1)

Heather in dawn mist (image 2)

Heather sunburst (image 3)

Carl Wark Higger Tor (image 4)

I was keen to photograph the heather as well as securing the warmth of the dawn light. Dawn was bright and clear with just a little mist in the valley and the rocks of the tor were bathed in a lovely warm glow (Image 1). However, within half an hour, the mist rolled in and the temperature dropped significantly but there was still a warmth in the light and I was inspired to focus in on some heather clinging to the rock (Image 2). These were the best images of that trip.

On the second foray with Trevor, nearly three weeks later, dawn once again appeared with a bright but largely overcast start and I felt inspired to obtain several images as the sun appeared. I used the smallest aperture on the lens, f/22, to obtain the star-burst using the diffraction within the lens (Image 3). This was an HDR of five images merged in Lightroom. There is a small amount of flare in this image but I am prepared to accept that as part of the price to pay for obtaining the starburst.

Image 4, a view from Higger Tor almost due south, allowed me to get some nice side-lighting on Carl Wark, an Iron Age hillfort on a rocky outcrop of the local millstone grit. By the time of taking this image the warmth of the early sun had gone but there was still some lovely side-light on the rocks and on the heather on Higger Tor.

Stanage Edge (Image 5)

Callow Bank (image 6)

Stanage Edge from Callow Bank (Image 7)

Stanage Edge from the Edge (Image 8)

A little later at about 7.30am we had moved away from Higger Tor and Image 5 shows Stanage Edge from below. I was pleased to be able to frame the Edge with the rocks and the heather and also to show the path acting as a lead-in line to the Edge itself.

Image 6 is of Callow Bank, a small promontory below Stanage, looking across Bamford Moor to the Kinder plateau in the far distance; a cropped single frame.

Image 7 is a panorama of Stanage from Callow Bank, six Nikkor and stitched in Lightroom. The detail is superb; a great lens.

On the day my wife and I went walking with our granddaughters, three days later, the weather was dry but heavily overcast. This grab shot (Image 8) has been converted to mono and the sky emphasised to allow the dark cloud to balance the mass of the prominence of Stanage Edge on the left: I particularly like the leadin of the rocks of the Edge itself sweeping in from the foreground. Mono conversions are so useful when dull dark conditions prevail.

The next two images are of Winnat’s Pass near Castleton on a venture with my good friend and outstanding photographer Dave Jones. Dawn was at the positively leisurely hour of 6.35am! Happily, there was a gap of clear sky on the horizon and the sun prevailed, albeit for a short but timely period, to allow the capture of several images from the top of the pass looking into the dawn light (Images 9 (front cover) and 10). Shortly after this the sky darkened and, by the time we had walked the relatively short distance back to the cars, it was raining moderately heavily.

Dawn light on Winnat's Pass (image 10)

Overcast weather, with or without the rain, is a good time for waterfalls so we headed for Waterfall Swallet, near the plague village of Eyam. Providentially, the rain had eased when we got there, although unfortunately, there was only a modest amount of water in the fall. The final two images show the fall; firstly, a general view and then one of the detail shots that I took.

I suppose the main message from an article such as this is that planning is paramount but flexibility of approach is also needed, especially when the weather experienced differs from that forecast. In any event, one has to take inspiration at the time from the prevailing conditions.

Waterfall Swallet (image 11)

As I have commented in a previous article in the May 2020 Landscape Newsletter, “Storm Dennis and a Photographic trip to Torridon”, I use Lightroom for almost all of my processing with Nik Silver Efex for most of my mono conversions, although I sometimes use the B&W pre-sets in Lightroom for mono.

Waterfall Swallet (Image 11) Detail shot of Waterfall Swallet (Image 12)

Footnote: The equipment used for these images was Nikon Z7/ Nikkor Z 24 – 70 mm (Images 2 – 6, 8, 11, 12) and Nikon D810 with Nikkor F/2.8 70 – 200mm at 200mm (Image 7) and Nikkor f/2.8 14 – 24 mm at 19mm (Images 9,10) and at 24mm (Image 1).

The easing of lockdown in the summer of 2020, for most people, was an opportunity to get out into the local countryside with some decent boots and suitable clothing. Kevin also included his camera with his packed lunch and headed off into the stunning landscape of the Peak District National Park. Planning trips out with both friends and family, the results are an impressive collection of images from some of the iconic locations of the area.