Greg Whitton Photography
**Great How from Holme Fell**
It's really hard for me to try to explain how hard it is to motivate myself to do any photography these days whilst I continue to recover from my knee injury. Recovery has been seriously interrupted by lockdowns and closures of gyms...indeed, I've not even been able to see a physio for over 6 months. With all of that my fitness has suffered considerably and so even short excursions can sometimes feel like I'm hitting the wall at mile 22 of a marathon. Therefore, the thought of making the effort to climb a hill for photography when the conditions are less than ideal...well, it doesn't appeal.
When on the hill, a different fear now presents itself. Fear of another injury. I used to head out without a care in the world really. Sure, I might slip and fall, but I always felt that I was the master of my own destiny, even in those circumstances...but now it is different. My body just failed when I injured my knee, with very little in the way of warning, just a little knee pain like I've had for years anyway. The actual step I took when my tendon snapped was so incredibly innocuous, it's the type of step I've taken thousands, if not millions, of times before...it was just like going down the stairs at home...but in that moment, my tendon chose when I was alone, on a hill, in inclement weather and without a mobile signal, to snap...not at home, going down the stairs. And now, although the injured knee presents no pain, my other one does, so the fear is that that will someday go too, as so often seems to happen with people who rupture one tendon, eventually the other one ruptures too. Add to that a lack of strength in the injured knee, some balancing issues and a tendency to give way without warning...that all adds up to a heck of a lot of nervousness when going off the beaten track.
The day I took this photo was no different in many ways. I was solo. The weather was inclement. There was no-one really around. I did have some extra protection in the form of a satellite transceiver that enables me to send an SOS and I did tell my wife where I was this time. But with boggy conditions underfoot, it still meant my mind wasn't wholly invested in photography until I'd set up my tripod and decided to wait, in the cloud and drizzle, for things to happen. And so I waited...and waited...and waited. About 2 hours later I felt the subtle change in temperature on my neck as the sun tried to break through the misty conditions. Poised with my finger on the shutter just hoping for the mistiness to clear a little to reveal the landscape, the conditions brightened to the left of the scene you see here until not only were the two tress visible, but also the landscape beyond...and low and behold, a rainbow. What resulted was a stitch pano consisting of 7 vertical frames and 160 megapixels of Lake District loveliness. This scene lasted for all of 30 seconds...and then it was gone.
I don't tend to big-up my photography, especially these days. I tend to work behind the scenes, especially for anything from Snowdonia, where I spend most of my time, refining my project and building, what I hope will be, a quality book. However, when I go elsewhere, it is sometimes nice to share what I captured, and I think even I like this one enough to shout about it.
**Great How from Holme Fell**
It's really hard for me to try to explain how hard it is to motivate myself to do any photography these days whilst I continue to recover from my knee injury. Recovery has been seriously interrupted by lockdowns and closures of gyms...indeed, I've not even been able to see a physio for over 6 months. With all of that my fitness has suffered considerably and so even short excursions can sometimes feel like I'm hitting the wall at mile 22 of a marathon. Therefore, the thought of making the effort to climb a hill for photography when the conditions are less than ideal...well, it doesn't appeal.
When on the hill, a different fear now presents itself. Fear of another injury. I used to head out without a care in the world really. Sure, I might slip and fall, but I always felt that I was the master of my own destiny, even in those circumstances...but now it is different. My body just failed when I injured my knee, with very little in the way of warning, just a little knee pain like I've had for years anyway. The actual step I took when my tendon snapped was so incredibly innocuous, it's the type of step I've taken thousands, if not millions, of times before...it was just like going down the stairs at home...but in that moment, my tendon chose when I was alone, on a hill, in inclement weather and without a mobile signal, to snap...not at home, going down the stairs. And now, although the injured knee presents no pain, my other one does, so the fear is that that will someday go too, as so often seems to happen with people who rupture one tendon, eventually the other one ruptures too. Add to that a lack of strength in the injured knee, some balancing issues and a tendency to give way without warning...that all adds up to a heck of a lot of nervousness when going off the beaten track.
The day I took this photo was no different in many ways. I was solo. The weather was inclement. There was no-one really around. I did have some extra protection in the form of a satellite transceiver that enables me to send an SOS and I did tell my wife where I was this time. But with boggy conditions underfoot, it still meant my mind wasn't wholly invested in photography until I'd set up my tripod and decided to wait, in the cloud and drizzle, for things to happen. And so I waited...and waited...and waited. About 2 hours later I felt the subtle change in temperature on my neck as the sun tried to break through the misty conditions. Poised with my finger on the shutter just hoping for the mistiness to clear a little to reveal the landscape, the conditions brightened to the left of the scene you see here until not only were the two tress visible, but also the landscape beyond...and low and behold, a rainbow. What resulted was a stitch pano consisting of 7 vertical frames and 160 megapixels of Lake District loveliness. This scene lasted for all of 30 seconds...and then it was gone.
I don't tend to big-up my photography, especially these days. I tend to work behind the scenes, especially for anything from Snowdonia, where I spend most of my time, refining my project and building, what I hope will be, a quality book. However, when I go elsewhere, it is sometimes nice to share what I captured, and I think even I like this one enough to shout about it.