Last weekend I took a trip to the Lake District with a friend to photograph the snowy scenery. Our intention was to hike up Lingmoor Fell for a view of the Langdales at sunset. On the way, we decided to stop off at Ambleside to capture the sunrise on the lake. As it turned out there wasn’t a sunset or even a sunrise to speak of.
The conditions were bitterly cold in the morning and the sky was clear blue. This did though leave the rising sun clear to hit the trees and hills on the opposite side of the lake. That’s when I shot the above panorama. It was quite fortunate as a group of about 30 swimmers decided to enter the water immediately in front of us. The long focal length allowed me to leave them out of the frame. It was however interesting watching their reaction to getting into the water when the air temperature was -4C.
I captured the image with my Nikon D800 and Nikon 70-300 lens. It’s three frames stitched in Lightroom to produce the panoramic which I processed in Photoshop using the Nik Collection. I also made use of quite a few Luminosity Masks using Lumenzia.
I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Very nice Robin still looks rather Autumnal
Thanks Dave. I think that’s the direct and very low sun that’s creating the effect.
Yes, it’s a beautiful image. Could also have been taken in the Appalachians (??) or here, in the Ardennes 😉 (that was a joke)
But then, really, four different software to get there?
It would be interesting to see the result after each intervention – what has changed, which is better…
For me, your photo is the most important : the different “layers” with first the reddish auburn trees, then the grey mountain with snow, the sunny mountain and finally the clouds.
I wish you a nice weekend.
Thanks. You don’t need 4 separate software editors to achieve a good result. Because I have lots (it’s the nature of my business) I pick the best one for each aspect of the workflow. I’ve also changed the purpose of this blog. I now only publish the end image here and any tutorials and demonstrations are on Lenscraft. That said, I haven’t done anything about editing this image.
The warm glow in such icy conditions works really well. As you’ve used both Lumenzia & Wow Frequency Seperation I’d be interested in your views on which plugin you prefer?
Thanks Chris. For me, each of the plugins I use is for a very specific purpose and I would struggle to pick one over another. For this image, I used the Frequency separation to create a softening effect. I used Lumenzia to create the luminosity masks that helped me target adjustments (including the Frequency Separation effect) onto certain tones.
Beautiful image, well composed and beautifully lit. You use ND grad filters like no one else, well done. Greetings from Brazil.
Thank you very much.