Seven Rooks over the Carles

Castlerigg. Cumbria.

21st January 2007

As I think I have mentioned before, there are certain locations that you can almost guarantee the presence of other photographers. Castlerigg is one of them.

I don’t have a problem with that, after all I don’t own the landscape and have no desire to do so.

On this occasion, several members of a photographic club were out for the day and descended on the Carles at the same time as Jim and I. Tripods were erected and formed a line level with the position I was in so none of us was interrupting each others viewpoint. All quite civilized really.

The lighting was flat and clouds scudded across the sky but I had observed sunbeams before stopping and I hoped for a glimpse of light to make the shot. The rooks at Castlerigg are a constant and noisy presence and nest in a wood to the left of frame.

As we all waited for something to happen, conversation sprang up and seemed to gravitate around my position as I did not let go of my cable release. What I found slightly amusing was that most of the other photographers had their backs to the stones and only turned around when I started making exposures of the scene you see here.

The light lasted a matter of seconds and was gone by the time they had returned to their cameras.

It is easy to assume that a popular location, crowed with photographers will not yield anything pictorially unique, but not everyone sees things the same way you do.