Win Hill Sunset

This set of photos is from April, one of my first post-snow outings of the year and whilst it is always enjoyable to make the short walk up to Win Hill from Hope (oddly, I think this was the first time I'd done it when it'd been light?!?) - it was made all the more interesting by the seemingly millions of lambs. Some behaving better than others... 

Spring Sunset Around Higger Tor/Stanage Edge

Towards the end of April I took a late evening stroll up from Grindleford, through Padley Gorge and the Longshaw Estate, over Carl Wark and Higger Tor to Stanage Edge. Whilst there was lots of nice light it was the first time I'd been out in a while, so was first and foremost just a very enjoyable walk - although, of course, that didn't stop me taking a few pictures... the sun somewhat fizzled out just as it was reaching it's most colourful - as it sunk into a thick bank of mist on the horizon which made it get surprisingly dark even before sunset had technically happened. The train back wasn't for another 90 minutes so I had some time to wander around amongst the late climbers and have a quite snack in the darkness at Carr Head rocks, overlooking Hathersage.

I've taken lots of shots of Carl Wark in all sorts of conditions, but this is probably one of my personal favourites - even with the endless brown heather!

Wild Camp No.1

Seems an age ago now... but right at the start of May, sick of not seeing a sunrise for a whole month, I decided to go camping. Those of you that have been following my photo-ing for a while will know that I don't have a car (I can in principle drive, but this is the life of a student who spends all his PhD money on photo gear) so I rely on the Hope Valley train line to get me places. The earliest train is 6.20am, arriving about half an hour later - which for the winter months is absolutely fine (if quite an effort to rush up hills in time) - but this was my first summer of serious photography so it didn't take long for me to get itchy feet.

As usual, all the photos in this post are available, or can be made available, on my website.

I've never woken up to a better view.

Edale Skyline

Ow do everyone!

It is quite unbelievable just how behind I am these days - so much for what started as my 'I'll post every week' rule, which then became 'every two weeks' and is now somewhere around the yearly mark. I thought I'd best put this one up though as for me, it was quite an achievement - my longest walk ever at 22.5 miles (until the 3 Peaks in two months time). A good few miles longer than my previous best, 17 miles in deep snow - which can be seen here.

This is a very well known charity-type walk, and some crazies even run a variation of it in the Edale Skyline Fell Race - so it was something I'd been meaning to do for quite a while. Starting in Hope, you walk (as the name suggests) around the skyline of the upper Hope Valley, overlooking Edale. This takes in Crookstone Out Moor, Kinder Scout, Brown Knoll, Lord's Seat, Mam Tor, Back Tor and Lose Hill, so plenty of ups and downs - but I thought I'd also include a couple of detours. The larger detour being to include Win Hill by walking up around the back near Ladybower before continuing along the usual route - and also a shorter, boggier detour to what *was* the highest point on Kinder Scout.

Great Shunner Fell

A couple of weeks back we went for a lovely warm walk up the 3rd tallest hill in the Yorkshire Dales, Great Shunner Fell - which overlooks both Swaledale and Wensleydale. In general there seems to be no good round walk from Thwaite as there is only a single path up, the Pennine Way, which continues south to Hawes. So whilst there will be no spectacular photos in this post I thought it might be useful to someone, somewhere, to see how we did it - especially navigating the dreaded peat bogs on our chosen route down.

Steep sided Buttertubs Pass - some lovely light too.

Help!... or any ideas?

This is not really a post, just a note and question regarding a problem with my photo-processing.

I've been using Canon's DPP software for ages but increasingly I come up against this message: "Insufficient memory. Cannot open file.". I understand, under normal circumstances, why this would pop up and as such close any unnecessary programs to free up some space etc... but, as an example, right now I have 5gb of  memory available (from a total of 8gb) and the folder I'm trying to open in DPP only has 6 jpegs in it. 

I'd understand this problem if I had hundreds of programs running, or was trying to open a folder of 500 RAW files or something ridiculous... but it's getting to the point now where I simply can't even open anything in order to look at my photos...

So, what am I missing? Any ideas? Everything on the internet just says to subdivide my folders - but, like I say, that starts to take the piss a little bit when I'm already down to 6 jpegs...

Thank you for anyone's help in advance!

Updates so far:
- Tried clearing cache - no effect
- Tried deleting temp files - still nothing.

Just Another Mam Tor Walk

This one seems such a long time ago now. Way back in February in what I thought might be the last snow of the winter (how wrong I was!) I headed out for my last sunrise shoot of the year. Relying on trains means that the earliest I can arrive at Edale is 6.55am so as sunrise gets earlier, it gets increasingly difficult before becoming impossible. On this occasion the sun was due to rise at 7.16 - so I had 21 minutes exactly to reach the ridge... and I have to admit, even I never thought I'd be able to make it up in that time, not least carrying all my usual kit. However, I did. Jogging as much of it as possible, and instead of heading directly up to Mam Tor but towards Hollins Cross - my feet stepped onto the footpath along the top at the exact moment the sun popped over the horizon, I couldn't quite believe it. I'm pretty sure the one other photographer up there that morning couldn't believe what he saw either, me turning up in just a t-shirt in subzero temperatures on top of a somewhat exposed hill... but he didn't witness the effort I had to put in to get there!

Remember, you can buy this or any other photo on this blog from www.matrobinsonphoto.co.uk - if you can't see it on there just send me a message!