Battling Sub Zero Conditions ｜ Landscape Photography ｜ Isle of Man

Bloody hell, it ain't half cold. I've come out to face the beast from the east today and it deserves its name. It's absolutely Baltic out here. So I'm going to try and keep this recording to a minimum because, yeah, my fingers are starting to feel it a little bit in these stupid gloves. I have come to a little lake, or lakes very generous, a little pond up in the hills, in the Manx, Isle of Man hills today, and it sits just next to South Borough, which is one of our most prominent mountains here. It's an actual location that I've visited once before and I've always thought that it would be really nice to come back when the pond is actually frozen over with ice. So today I've got the exact conditions I was waiting for. So I'm going to try and look for some compositions to shoot this and see if I can get anything worthwhile. You know what? I'm just not feeling it today. I've been here for about an hour and I've tried six or seven different positions around the lake and I just can't find a composition that works for me. It's really weird. It's just one of those days where nothing seems to click for me. I'm just not feeling it. I'm going to stay here a little bit longer and hope that I can find something. But to be honest, it's absolutely freezing. So I don't think I can stay here that much longer. I think if you're ever coming to shoot photographs in and around lakesides that are frozen over, you've got to be really careful. I actually went just down here to try and get some close up shots of the side of the lake and I started to fall through the ice. I don't think it's a particularly deep pond, but it doesn't matter in this kind of extreme low temperatures. It really wouldn't be a good idea to fall into that. So I think that's something to be wary of. So I'm going to back off and forget about trying to get close into the lakeside because it's just not going to work. So I'm going to see if I can find a composition that maybe sits a little bit further back. So I think I finally found a composition that I'm kind of happy with. Although to be honest, I'm still not entirely feeling it. It's just one of those bizarre days for me. So the shot I'm going for is just down here. So you can see the side of the actual pond. There's some really nice, interesting shapes of ice that are coming out from the side of it. And you've got these kind of bunches of kind of long kind of wetland grass coming through that have collected kind of mini snowdrifts as well that adds a little bit of interest. So I think that's quite a good foreground down in here. And then you've obviously got the icy pond in the sort of middle of the shot. And then behind that, you've actually got a nice sort of layer of sort of plantation. And then behind that, you've actually got the mountain as well. So I think this shot has got nice layers all the way through it. And I think by coming back off the side of the actual pond itself, I think I'll be able to capture these layers effectively. My fingers are bloody freezing. I really, really should invest in some actual gloves that cover the entirety of my hand. Not practical for weather like this. Ridiculous. Anyhow, I've settled my tripod and I've captured the shot back from the side of the actual pond. And I think it's turned out reasonably well, considering my kind of despondency to photography today. So yeah, that's not so bad. I've seen another shot that I'm going to go in a little bit closer to try and capture this kind of little tendril of kind of ice that's coming out from the side of the pond. I'm going to try and go closer to that and see if I can pick out a composition. I feel it's got a bit of potential. So I'm just down near the side of the pond and you can see this beautiful bit of ice here. The shapes in the ice are absolutely beautiful. So I think there's a composition I can work with here. I'm going to try and set up a shot in between the two sort of collections of reeds. So you've got this collection and you've got that collection there. I think this is a shot that probably needs focus stacking as well. So I'm going to try and focus down on the foreground one shot and then the second shot I'm going to focus back on the mountain and then I'm going to try and put them together in post-processing. So the second shot that I got in close to the edge of the ice in between the actual patches of grass, I think that's turned out all right. I did get a little bit of light actually that kind of started to shine through. So that coincided well with that shot. But to be brutally honest, I'm just not feeling it today. I could take the most incredible photograph and I'd be like, meh. It doesn't matter what compositions I am presented with today. I'm just not feeling it. And I tend to find with photography, if you're not in the right mindset, it really doesn't matter where you go. You could go to the most beautiful place in the world and you won't create good images. So yeah, I'm not sure about today's images. Perhaps I'm being overly harsh and critical, but that's just the way I feel today. It's just been one of those days. But yeah, I'm not disappointed. I'm glad that I managed to get out and experience a little bit of this kind of extreme weather. I mean, it's mentally cold up here. It must be minus three or four and the winds are very, very strong as well. So the wind chill is insane. So yeah, I'm really, really starting to feel the cold. So I probably shouldn't stay up here all that much longer. To be honest, I could probably spend all day up here and I still wouldn't be satisfied with what I've captured. Just one of those days. Anyone who does photography for any length of time will encounter these days and I think it's just natural. So I'm not too worried. I've still had an enjoyable time. Who knows? I may get back and take a look at the images and actually go, yeah, maybe I've been overly harsh. Who knows? In any case, if you've enjoyed this little wintry kind of adventure, and if you've enjoyed watching me freeze my ass off, then please subscribe to my channel and I will see you all next week. Goodbye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai