How not to be an ace photographer!!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well as a writer who is, and always has been, totally useless with a camera, I have to disagree. But only because I am one of those people who, despite trying very hard, have never got the hang of photography. I've tried, I really have. I've read books and been on courses, but somehow I never seem to get it quite right.

So when my nephew, a photographer by profession, offered to give me some tips yesterday, I was happy to receive them. Before we started I did point out to him that turning me into an ace photographer would be something of a challenge, but he just shrugged his shoulders and told me that anyone can do it, you just have to follow a few basic rules.

He started by telling me that the number one golden rule is that photography is all about using the available light, and then manipulating it to best effect. For autumn landscape photography that means being up and about at the Golden Hour. Apparently, despite being in the singular, the golden hour is actually two hours. The one just after the sun has come up, and the one just before the sun goes down. Evidently, the light at this time of year takes on a golden hue at these times. 

This seemed quite logical to me. So far, so good.

Then he told me that I can add to this effect by changing the camera's white balance setting to give the pictures a warmer feel. And having confidently offered this nugget of information, he then asked if I knew how to change the white balance setting. And that was when my eyes glazed over. The thing is, I haven't got the foggiest idea of what a white balance setting is.

“Give me your camera,” he said, “and I'll show you.”

So I gave him my camera, and all he did was say “Ahh”. It was not so much what he said, as how he said it. His voice carried a tone of heavy disappointment. He kind of weighed my camera in his hand for a second or two, and then asked “Why didn't you say that you only had a compact?”

“It wasn't cheap,” I replied defensively, “it cost over fifty quid, and it fits really well into my bag.”

My defensive utterings fell on deaf ears. “You can't change the white balance on this” he told me.

“Right, so what you are telling me is that my camera is no good and I need a better one,” I replied.

“Not at all,” he said, “it's not worse, just different. You need a slightly different technique, that's all.”

Ah bless, he was trying not to upset me, but I could tell from the disappointment in his voice that he really was not too impressed with my choice of camera. He thought for a moment and then said, “Right, well, golden rule number one still applies, so don't rub that out.”

“OK”

“But forget what I said about white balance.” He looked at my camera again and asked “how old is this?”

“Not very old,” I replied, “I got it in 2001.”

There was a heavy sigh, followed by an embarrassed silence, before he started on the revised version of golden rule number 2.

“Right, well,” he started, “since there is not a lot you can do with the camera, it's really all about composition.”

I'll not re-tell the whole conversation here. It lasted about an hour. Suffice to say that he suggested a number of things that I could do to produce a half decent photo.

Like not trying to photograph wide landscapes or stuff that is a long way away. Instead I should concentrate on things which have light shining on them. And if I really must insist on trying to capture the landscape in all it's glory I needed to think about creating some kind of visual pathway within the picture to keep it interesting. Maybe following the line of a river or road as it winds it way down a valley. Or choose a subject in the landscape that has a contrasting colour, like a white house.

Also, when photographing an object like a boat or a steam train, try to get it when it is not moving. And get people in the photos if at all possible. Evidently, a picture of a steam train in a station with all the people getting out of the carriages is far more interesting than one of just the engine.

It was all good stuff and very interesting and informative, but by the end of the hour he could see my eyes glazing over again.

“Actually,” he said,” maybe you could try choosing subjects that are totally different, like an unusually shaped tree. Or perhaps something on the ground, like a flower, or snail or something like that.

“A snail?!!” I said.

He looked at me in desperation. “Anything low down,” he answered, “I don't know, what kinds of things do you find in the lake district in autumn?”

I was going to say 'sheep poo' but thought better of it. I didn't want him to think I was not taking him seriously.

“How about the moss in a wall,” he continued, “ or the bark on a tree, or maybe horse chestnuts, or berries, or holly. ANYTHING! As long as it is interesting.”

“What about a puddle?” I asked.

“So you think puddles are interesting?” he replied, a sarcastic tone entering his voice.

“ A puddle with a reflection of an unusual tree in it would be,” I suggested.

He thought for a moment. “Reflections on a still lake, now they are good, particularly if you have autumn colours mirrored on the surface.”

“We're back to landscapes then,” I said.

He sighed.

Despite his obvious exasperation, I felt we were getting somewhere. My creative juices were beginning to flow, so I got some pictures I had taken and asked him to review them and make a few suggestions as to how they could have been improved.

After looking through them, raising an occasional eyebrow as he did so, he put them down and said “Do you have a tripod?”

So that's the answer. After all these years it turns out that I am not useless at photography after all, I just can't hold the camera steady.

No such luck, it turns out that I have to do all the other stuff as well as keeping the camera steady. Curses, I thought I was on to something for a moment. Anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. Next week I shall put my new found knowledge into action and try to take some half decent photos. So all I can say is watch this space!

How to keep your parents occupied on holiday when it rains

It's half term. And it's raining.

The thought of a day of rain is not exactly going to make most of the holiday makers in the Lake District dance for joy. The key question is, what to do about it?

With it being half term the chances are that a lot of this weeks visitors will be families, and the trouble with families is that one half of them needs to be entertained. It's a perennial problem that affects most children at some point in their young lives - How to keep your parents occupied on holiday when it rains.

You see, parents have the knack of getting depressed when the wet stuff starts to fall from the sky. The reason for this is simply that, because they are on holiday, parents have to "do something different". They are not content with the idea that you can simply fire up the Play Station, or go for a swim, or visit an attraction that has an interactive element to it, or maybe even a Ball Pool to play in. With parents the golden rule is simple; if you can do it at home, then you are not doing it on holiday. End of.

They are oblivious to the fact that most of the "stuff" that people do is done indoors anyway. And they constantly moan about the cost, and having to find somewhere good to eat. Very often there is the constant whingeing about "where to go next". When they are on holiday parents never seem to want to go back to somewhere they have been before. They always want to try to think of somewhere new. And then the bickering starts, as mum wants this and dad wants that, and if there are grandparents on site they take sides and all hell breaks loose.

This disharmony often leads to the very worst scenario of all. They decide, often without consulting the children at all, that they have spent enough money, and that there is nowhere new to go, and so the best thing to do is to go for a drive. And just to compound their children's plight, they decide to take sandwiches so they don't have to find somewhere for lunch.

A clear indication that children are being forcibly driven around in cars in the rain is the growth of traffic on the region's roads during wet weather. Generally speaking, the traffic in the Lake District is always at it's worst during the half term monsoon season. Consequently, even as I write this, there are a lot of bored families who are driving around the Lake District with nowhere to go, and all day to get there.

Of course, all children know that driving around the Lake District in the rain is probably, no definitely, the worst thing you can ever do when on holiday. It is boring, no one can see the scenery, the driver sees little more than the back end of the car in front, (and there will invariably always be a car in front, which will invariably contain more parents who refuse to take their children's advice to stay in the cottage and watch telly) and after a while the hypnotic swish of the windscreen wipers will render everyone into a state of stupour from which it will take at least a day to recover. But will they listen? Of course they won't. They are parents, and they know best.

So what is the answer? When the rain pours down and parents start muttering that "they knew they should have stayed at home" what can children do to rescue the situation? In short, how do they keep their parents entertained on wet days?

(By the way, this next bit is for children only, so if you are a parent stop reading and go do something else.

NOW)

You'll be pleased to know that there are a number of solutions. Such as having an attraction raffle. What you do is put the names of all the indoor attractions into a hat and then pick one out, and that is the one that you are going to visit and no arguments. Or you can play "pin the parent to the map." Basically, you spend about an hour making a cardboard cut out model of your parents, ( a cereal packet is good for this) and then take it in turns (parents can join in) to wear a blindfold and pin either mum, or dad, or both, to a map of the Lake District. Whoever puts a pin the nearest to an attraction gets a prize and also everyone has to visit that attraction, and no moaning, because that's the law.

By the way, devious children can fiddle this game in their favour by smearing strawberry jam on the part of the map that they want to visit, and then when it comes to their turn all they have to do is find the sticky bit of the map and pin their cardboard effigy of mum or dad to it.

If neither of the above work, then hiding the car keys can be a solution to the "driving around in the rain" issue. It beats telling everyone you feel sick as it avoids having to feign illness. But there is a down side, as you can get seriously told off, however, this may have an up side as some parents will temporarily forget that they are on holiday and decide to ground you, thereby grounding themselves at the same time.

If all else fails, and it might, then you can resort to the oldest trick in the book and get out the colouring books. Parents love their children getting really stuck into to a colouring book, and very often will be happy to join in. Before long you will have two very happy parents sitting at the kitchen table trying very hard to colour in "Winnie the Pooh" without going over the edges whilst you, dear child, can be left alone to get on with playing on whatever computer game you managed to smuggle into your bag.

Have a very happy half term.

How to confuse a tourist!

Whilst walking through Windermere on Saturday morning I was approached by a couple carrying a piece of paper. They looked to be in their early sixties. She had the look of Joyce Grenfell, and the manner of Margaret Thatcher in her heyday. He looked as though he had spent a life time following her lead.

"Excuse me," said the lady, "but do you live here?"
"I do" was my reply.
"At last!" she exclaimed, "we've asked quite a few people already, but they are all on holiday. We are a bit confused. This is Windermere, isn't it?"
"It is," I confirmed.
"But we can't find the lake" she continued. "Is there another Windermere, one with a lake?"
"No," I said, "this is the only one."
"Well that's silly," she replied, "why is this called Windermere when it is not near Lake Windermere?"

I could have just shrugged my shoulders and said I did not know and moved on. It would have been a whole lot easier, but then it is not the first time that this has happened to me. I once tried to explain to a Japanese girl on train that there was a big difference between Windermere and Lakeside Stations, and that when we got to Windermere she would not be able to simply hop off the train and onto a boat to get to Ambleside.It took the entire journey from Kendal to Windermere, and even then I don't think she believed me.

So I decided that if I was to answer this ladies question I should do so properly, which as it turned out was something of a mistake.
"Actually," I said, " the lake is not called Lake Windermere. It is just Windermere."
"But according to this map it is called Lake Windermere, and this is just Windermere" She waved her map at me as though to convince me that it was right and I was wrong.
"No," I replied, "they are both called Windermere. Calling it Lake Windermere would be a bit like calling London, "City London". "
"That is what it is called," interrupted her companion. "Or the City of London to be precise."
"Don't be silly Gerald, you can't call Lake Windermere "Lake of Windermere" " the lady replied sternly.

Clearly she and poor Gerald had already had words about the issue. And what I thought had started out as a polite enquiry was threatening to turn into a heated debate.

"It's all very simple, " I said, " The 'mere' part of the word Windermere means 'Lake', so it is just Windermere."
"But that's just a technicality" replied the lady, indignantly. " Anyway, what I want to know is why the town is not beside the lake. Surely if you name a town after a lake then it needs to be on the shores of that lake."
"But the town is not named after the lake," I replied. "It is named after the railway station."

This piece of information was clearly too much for her.
"Oh, this is stupid," she stated, "come on Gerald, we'll go and ask someone else."

Without so much as a thank you for my time, she marched off, Gerald in hot pursuit. I felt a little sorry for him.

Anyway, just in case she happens to chance upon this blog, or in the event of you, dear reader, also being confused, allow me to fully explain.

Windermere is a lake. That is it's name. It is not Lake Windermere, or even Windermere Lake, but just Windermere. At ten miles long and in some parts over a mile wide it is England's largest natural lake. 

But, Windermere is also a town, and it is not unreasonable to assume that Windermere the town stands beside Windermere the lake. After all, the town of Coniston stands close to Coniston Water, and Grasmere village is close to Grasmere. However, it does not. The name of the town beside Windermere (the lake) and joined to Windermere (the town) is actually Bowness on Windermere. Windermere (the town) stands on the hillside overlooking Windermere (the lake), and is at least a mile from the water's edge. 

All of which is very confusing for the first time visitor, who, having arrived in Windermere (the town), sets off  to the lake shore, little knowing that they face a trek of almost 2 miles to reach the piers at Bowness.

So how did this situation come about? Why is Bowness on Windermere not called, simply, Windermere, and why is Windermere (the town) so far from Windermere (the lake)? The answer lies in the history of the local railway network.

Bowness on Windermere has been in existence from at least the 11^th century, when St Martins church was first established close to the lake shore. The main industry in the village was fishing, and it was also the major crossing point. The narrowest part of the lake is just south of Bowness, at Ferry nab.

When the Kendal and Windermere railway was first proposed, the directors of the railway company wanted to build their line from Oxenholme, where the newly built West Coast mainline ran, to Low Wood, on the shores of Windermere. The intention was very simple. It was to allow the townsfolk of Kendal, and beyond, easy access to the lake and all it's pleasures.

The line was to be built in two sections. The first was to be constructed to the point where the road to Bowness branched off from the turnpike road which ran from Kendal to Ambleside, between the hamlets of Birthwaite and Elleray. Originally, the station was to be named Birthwaite, however, there was a change of plan when objections to the building of the second part of the line were received. The objectors were the wealthy landowners of the region, who feared the effect that the new railway would have on the financial value of their investments. They were supported by the poet William Wordsworth, who gained national coverage for the campaign against the railway.

Popular history records that the protest was a successful one, however, not for the first time popular history does not reflect the truth, which is that the railway company, having started work on the second section of the line, ran out of money. The plan for the railway had included a viaduct over the river at Troutbeck Bridge, and the directors of the line soon realised that the project was out of their reach. So the station at Birthwaite became the line's terminus, and was subsequently re named Windermere, denoting that this was the closest that rail travellers were going to get to the Lake.

Windermere (the town) grew up around the new railway station and extended along the road to Bowness on Windermere. Consequently it took it's name from the railway station, which is in turn named after Windermere ( the lake).

Simple really.