Over Owler Tor. Peak District 09/01/2024

With a frost forecast I made the decision in the evening to go out for a wander into the Peak District National Park the following morning to try and catch some sunrise light. So I was up bright and early, looking out of the window I could see that there was no frost on the car so I was in two minds, should I retreat back to the bed and curl up in the warmth are should I just go far it, well I was up now anyway so the decision was made, I went down stairs and made myself a drink.

Looking through the kitchen window I could see stars and a little low cloud in the sky over to the east, the wind wasn't blowing as much as predicted the night before on the local weather reports so that felt like a bonus' on past experience if I much as see a leaf move on the garden it's going to be blowing out on those hills.

Then after having a drink and checking that I'd packed my gloves and woolly hat I then made up my flask, went out and loaded the car, it was chilly out, but then again it is January.

I still hadn't decided where to go, I'll think of that while I'm driving I thought, It wasn't until I got to Owler Bar until I had to make a choice, do I stay in the left lane and head down towards Baslow are keep right and go towards Fox House, I decided on the latter and headed towards Surprise View and go up and onto Over Owler Tor, It had been a while since my previous walk up there, the last time was back in August 2022 during the heather season so it was about time I payed it a visit.

I pulled into the car park at Surprise View at around 7.15am a good hour before sunrise, looking over Lawrence Field the sky wasn't looking too great, a touch of low cloud, and the breeze had got up. I gave it ten minutes, put on my boots, gloves and hat, then made my way across the car park.

For those not to familiar with this location Over Owler Tor is situated above Millstone Edge, park in the car park at Surprise View and head north on one the few paths that go through the woodland, there's a slight incline, then up and over a few boulders and your onto the start of the moorland.

Once I was on the moor I had a look over my shoulder and could see a touch of colour beginning to show on the horizon so I was feeling a little more optimistic that I would come away with a picture, just one would do.

The wind was a lot stronger now and it was a cold north easterly, it was biting. I carried on walking the well trodden path that was frozen underfoot.

As I approached the large gritstone rock known as the Mother Cap I paused for a while debating to myself whether to make this my composition are not, after few minutes I decided to walk a bit further passing another smaller rock formation known as the Beehive, I thought about setting up here as well but declined.

It was looking like my options were slowly running out so I made my way a bit further along to a location had shot before along with numerous other photographers in the past, but I'd never took a picture there in the winter so now was my chance to get it looking a bit different to my other shots from here which had been took mainly during the height of the summer so no purple and pinks on this morning's outing.

I got to my location at 8am giving me enough time to sort out my composition, luckily this didn't take much working out, I wanted to try and add as much of this winter heather I could, plus another one of those interesting gritstone rock formations in the frame along with the prominent looking Higger Tor in the distance, So after a little look around with the camera in hand I'd soon made my mind up where I wanted to be.

Setting up the tripod it soon became apparent I was going to struggle with this wind, the foreground heather was blowing around all over the place, so after attaching my 10-24mm lens and putting the camera on the tripod I attached my shutter release cable, at least this would give me half a chance of firing off a few shots when there was a brief lull in between the gusts.

The cloud was beginning to clear on the horizon where in another 5 minutes the sun was going to rise, it was looking like I was going to get the light, but the sky above Higger towards where I was facing it wasn't to good, hopefully when the sun did rise It would catch some light and give me a bit of colour.

Finally around 15 minutes after sunrise it started to illuminate the foreground giving it that lovely golden glow I was here to capture, the sky in front of me was getting a bit better, not brilliant but it wasn't as flat as it was earlier, there wasn't many breaks in the wind gusts so it was just a case of pressing the shutter release button and quickly checking the playback on the back of the screen to see if I'd managed to get away from getting that motion blur in the foreground I was trying to avoid, it looked like I'd succeeded  to a degree, but just to be on the safe side I took a few more shots before calling it a day, the dials on the camera were  getting harder to navigate, I couldn't feel my fingertips, I'd had enough and was looking forward to getting back to a warm car and a hot drink.

Fujifilm xh2 10-24mm.