Snow Day at The Roaches
A landscape photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
It hasn’t been a very wintery winter here in Stoke-on-Trent. We’ve had a few snow flurries, and probably one “snow day” but it feels like it’s been very drab. Even the frosts have been few and far between, and not terribly cold.
Checking the weather forecast it was showing the possibility of a bit of snowfall on the higher ground, so I thought I’d chance my arm up at The Roaches. Whilst snow had been forecast it was coming overnight, and sunrise itself was showing as clear skies. With that in mind I didn’t bust a gut to get out of bed for sunrise, so I didn’t arrive until around 09:30ish.
Snow day at The Roaches.
The downside of shooting The Roaches during daytime in winter is that a lot of the classic compositions will mean shooting into the sun. Whilst this isn’t my favourite thing to do I was in this instance more than aware of this fact, and had purposely gone out to try and do just that.
Taking my time I started with the classic shots looking back towards Hen Cloud. I was using my filters, and trying to find something a little different in my compositions. For the most part this seemed to be going wide, and low to try and emphasise the foreground elements.
Sometimes I find that I get lazy, and just stick with a lens but today I had slowed down, and I was definitely being more thoughtful with my photography. I think on today’s shoot I used all my three lenses at some point.
After grabbing a few “classics” I had a brew before working my way up onto the top level. After that I pretty much kept on with the same mantra, and spent the next five hours or so just really enjoying the conditions, and the challenge of shooting into the sun.
Eventually I reached Doxy Pool. Whilst It had been a little while since I’d been to The Roaches I hadn’t realised (or read any posts) about the conservation work that was taking place up there. Doxy Pool was well and truly fenced off and judging by the condition of the ground, and the signs stating the reasoning for doing this I suspect it’s going to be a long time before it’s removed, and the area is opened back up.
It’s a shame it has to be fenced off. Given the popularity of this location I fully appreciate why erosion on this scale occurs, and fully appreciate why the conservation intervention is needed. I guess the take-away I had from this is get the shots while you can. Fortunately I have many images of Doxey Pool, but others won’t. I on the other hand don’t have any images of Sycamore Gap . . .
Anyway I hope you’ve enjoyed these. I have added a few other images from today in my Peak District gallery of The Roaches if you want to check those out.
You can view more images from The Roaches, and my gallery of other Peak District locations.
