Pendle Hill snow covered reflection ©Lee Mansfield
Winner of the 2022 Lancashire Life reader photography competition
This photo took me 4 years to capture…
In my mind I had this vision how I wanted to capture the photo. A lot of factors come in to place such as wind speed (for the cloud movement) the movement of the lake for the stillness to able the reflection and of course snow.
Every year when it snowed I would go up 2 or 3 times to capture my vision but always been either to cloudy, not enough wind or the lake had not been calm.
This particular time I got there about 11am and setup my tripod, when I arrived the conditions was ok, the snow looked good the sky was moving but the reflection was not the best due to the light. I waited about 30 minutes then decided it was not going to happen. I decided to pack up my gear then started to walk back down the lake. As I am walking away all of a sudden the sun hit the lake casting the most beautiful reflection of Pendle hill I have ever seen.
Knowing my settings I quickly ran back to my position, setup my camera mounted it on my tripod then took a 30 second long exposure – this allowing capturing the movement in the cloud and the calmness of the lake.
I finally managed to capture my vision of Pendle Hill covered in snow, perfect reflection. The reflection lasted for about 5 minutes. I remember a chap walking by with his dog and he asked me if I had capture the reflection, I showed him what I captured through my viewfinder – his words were “this is an award winning photo [well done]”
I felt so proud and worth all the failed trips to capture this photo.
Settings f/11, ISO-100, 30s exposure, 15mm
A 30 second exposure is classed as a Long Exposure – the camera’s shutter is left open during a somewhat lengthy period of time capturing movement in clouds and water giving the photo a unique look from just a normal snap.
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