Well, us landscape photographers won’t forget this winter in a hurry! With freezing cold temperatures and roads that were at best hardly passable, it made excursions to the prettiest locations a little more interesting to say the least….. or did it?

Hawnby View

With the first flurries of snow starting only a week before Christmas I decided that Malham Cove would be one such pretty location to visit. Snow had only laid on the high ground when I set off and indeed whilst wandering around Malham I only encountered a light flurry until around 3 O’Clock. From thereon in all hell let loose, the snow clouds set in and a deluge of the white stuff ensued. Hastily making my way back to the car I set off home - which is when the fun started. Making my way back to the main roads was hell. I experienced inclines that almost became too much and a few near misses with hedgerows, trees and other cars. I always carry a spade this time of year, but I’m not sure it would have been much good to be honest. Therefore, I was glad to be back home in one piece over three and a half hours later (normal travelling time from Malham just under two hours).
For a long time now I’ve been considering using snow chains for this very reason. Therefore, as a Christmas treat to myself I decided to purchase said snow chains which duly arrived between Christmas and New Year. Boy, am I glad I did because, as we all know, we certainly got our fair share of snow this year. Taking around twenty minutes to initially work out how to put them on I got the time down to around five minutes for both tyres after a bit of practice - and what a difference they make!
Indeed, today’s image of a view to Hawnby and Hawnby Moor couldn’t have been made without having snow chains fitted to the car (although I could have used my private helicopter of course, but fuel is getting quite expensive for it these days!). Putting the chains on just outside Osmotherley I made my way up past square corner and towards Hawnby with the reassurance that every hill was like driving on tarmac. As well as giving me confidence they were bloody good fun! Indeed a Landrover behind me was struggling to keep up whilst driving up some of the steep inclines!
Normally, I would pass this point on the way to Hawnby, but today, with all the snow, it seemed the perfect vantage point from which to make an image. Waiting for the right moment I had time to breathe in the fresh air and take stock of the fact that it was extra quiet - possibly to do with the fact that hardly any vehicles could drive anywhere?
A difficult image to set up due to the nearest fence being broken at an upward angle (If I could have got to it without disturbing the snow I might have been tempted to knock it down a bit - confession over!) I decided to use front tilt focussing to keep everything in check with my main objective to make sure that the distant Hawnby Hill and Easterside Hill were nicely focus.
From here I carried on all the way to Hawnby Hill to take a peek….. because I could!

Technical Data: 150mm on front tilt focus, 15s@ f22, Provia 100F, 0.3ND Grad.

As usual you can find this image and more in the ‘Recently Added’ section of the Gallery, Enjoy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Mark Banks Photography Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.