Steve Pellatt
What's in a Name..... I
Routin Linn Waterfall, Northumberland
All Togs know that the weather gods don’t always smile on us and in fact it’s possible to get equally great shots in most weather conditions if you can adapt to them. So on my recent trip to Northumbria I was sitting with a nice pint of real ale purchased from the pub that was part of the B&B (now that’s something I’ll have to look for more on Booking.com😀) interrogating the multitude of weather apps that are on my phone.
No matter how many of them I asked, the answer was the same…grey skies with the faintest chance of a bright spell here or there. I just could not get them to change their answer no matter how many times I asked. The forecast indicated it would be worth leaving Holy Island to later in the week and tide times were not great for some of the other locations I was thinking of.
A few years ago I’d have probably either not gone out or tried to ‘force’ the shoot at one of the ‘big’ locations but nowadays I think I’ve learnt to be able to adapt ….to a degree anyway. I’d spotted Routin Linn in the Fotovue book and dull grey days are generally made for waterfalls . With the decision made I sorted out my directions on Google having first identified what I thought was the recommended ‘parking’ spot then closed the book and weather apps to make sure I didn’t spill any of the pint!
After a very nice breakfast at the pub/B&B (can’t recal if it was smoked salmon & scrambled eggs or a full Northumberland cooked breakfast) it was off to find the waterfall. Having spent a few miles weaving around the inevitable potholes I pulled into the access track where the recommended parking was. At the site of the churned up deep ruts in the wet verge I shuddered and had visions of getting stuck with no-one around and no phone signal. Inching slightly onto a less damaged bit of verge I hoped I was far enough over for any agricultural vehicles to get past (they could cope with the mud that was the verge surely!) but not so much that I wouldn't have traction.
Wellies on, and all kitted out I set off remembering to take a walking pole as I’ve learnt the hard way that to get my old bones down to a waterfall would likely involved going down a path where the combination of erosion, rainfall and gradient meant I’d need the tripod and walking pole to have any chance of getting there on my feet instead of posterior!
As is my normal way with waterfalls I spent several hours experimenting with various compositions and shutter speeds. Focus stacking, bracketing and both. There are 4 shots I like of which 2 are colour and 2 are B&W. In the interests of not not dragging things out too long I’ll post them in 2 sets with each set being 1 colour and 1 B&W image.
Now I’m sure many of you will be thinking “well that’s all fine but what on earth has any of that got to do with your image title Steve?” Well it’s that in researching this location it’s apparent it’s very uncertain of how it’s name should be spelt. I came across various permutations of spelling including Roughting, Roughtin, Lynn and Linn.
Now OS has ‘Routin Lynn’ as the name of a nearby property but Google, What3Words and the Fotovue book have it as ‘Routin Linn’ so I’m gonna go with that!
As Mark twain said “Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination.”😂
I’ve tried to do some catching up on posts whilst I was away and since I came back but I fully expect I’ve missed so so if I have missed some of your images I’m really sorry.
© All rights reserved to Steve Pellatt. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.
What's in a Name..... I
Routin Linn Waterfall, Northumberland
All Togs know that the weather gods don’t always smile on us and in fact it’s possible to get equally great shots in most weather conditions if you can adapt to them. So on my recent trip to Northumbria I was sitting with a nice pint of real ale purchased from the pub that was part of the B&B (now that’s something I’ll have to look for more on Booking.com😀) interrogating the multitude of weather apps that are on my phone.
No matter how many of them I asked, the answer was the same…grey skies with the faintest chance of a bright spell here or there. I just could not get them to change their answer no matter how many times I asked. The forecast indicated it would be worth leaving Holy Island to later in the week and tide times were not great for some of the other locations I was thinking of.
A few years ago I’d have probably either not gone out or tried to ‘force’ the shoot at one of the ‘big’ locations but nowadays I think I’ve learnt to be able to adapt ….to a degree anyway. I’d spotted Routin Linn in the Fotovue book and dull grey days are generally made for waterfalls . With the decision made I sorted out my directions on Google having first identified what I thought was the recommended ‘parking’ spot then closed the book and weather apps to make sure I didn’t spill any of the pint!
After a very nice breakfast at the pub/B&B (can’t recal if it was smoked salmon & scrambled eggs or a full Northumberland cooked breakfast) it was off to find the waterfall. Having spent a few miles weaving around the inevitable potholes I pulled into the access track where the recommended parking was. At the site of the churned up deep ruts in the wet verge I shuddered and had visions of getting stuck with no-one around and no phone signal. Inching slightly onto a less damaged bit of verge I hoped I was far enough over for any agricultural vehicles to get past (they could cope with the mud that was the verge surely!) but not so much that I wouldn't have traction.
Wellies on, and all kitted out I set off remembering to take a walking pole as I’ve learnt the hard way that to get my old bones down to a waterfall would likely involved going down a path where the combination of erosion, rainfall and gradient meant I’d need the tripod and walking pole to have any chance of getting there on my feet instead of posterior!
As is my normal way with waterfalls I spent several hours experimenting with various compositions and shutter speeds. Focus stacking, bracketing and both. There are 4 shots I like of which 2 are colour and 2 are B&W. In the interests of not not dragging things out too long I’ll post them in 2 sets with each set being 1 colour and 1 B&W image.
Now I’m sure many of you will be thinking “well that’s all fine but what on earth has any of that got to do with your image title Steve?” Well it’s that in researching this location it’s apparent it’s very uncertain of how it’s name should be spelt. I came across various permutations of spelling including Roughting, Roughtin, Lynn and Linn.
Now OS has ‘Routin Lynn’ as the name of a nearby property but Google, What3Words and the Fotovue book have it as ‘Routin Linn’ so I’m gonna go with that!
As Mark twain said “Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination.”😂
I’ve tried to do some catching up on posts whilst I was away and since I came back but I fully expect I’ve missed so so if I have missed some of your images I’m really sorry.
© All rights reserved to Steve Pellatt. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.