It started on September 14, 2023. I was working and a Light and Land email popped into my email inbox. “Joe Cornish and PHIL MALPAS in The Lakes.” I stopped what I was working on immediately and checked the email. I went downstairs and said, “Hey, Ann, wanna do a Joe Cornish workshop next year in the Lake District in the UK?” Within 15 minutes of receiving the email, we had two spots reserved. Thus began our plans for this trip. Not one to let a great photography opportunity pass us by, the reservation for a workshop from the 4th to the 8th of November in The Lake District has grown into a 23-day trip to the Northern UK and Scotland. This post tells you what we’ll be doing around the period you’re reading this post.

A heads-up on the photographs - none of them are ours (of course - we’ve never been there). I’ll credit whose they are if I know that information. Just know, other than the diagrammatic images, other photographers deserve credit for the imagery.

It took awhile for us to, first, settle our excitement down (finally a workshop with Joe Cornish doesn’t get cancelled due to Covid [knock on wood]), and second, to figure out precisely how long Dan can and should take off from work. Would this be our only trip to the UK and Scotland? How long is too long, how short is too short. After returning from our trip to Sweden, I set about working up several scenarios and discussed them with Ann. Ultimately, it wound up that just over 3 weeks would be good and in July we started firming up some plans.

The first question was how to get there. Options were to drive all the way there (well, train it through the Chunnel), fly and rent a vehicle while there, and the option we settled on - taking an overnight ferry from a port near Amsterdam to Newcastle in the north of England. So on July 4, we booked our cabin.

Three weeks is a bit of time, especially if you don’t know an area, but it can get sucked up with a lot of driving and very little photography, especially if you don’t know the area, which we don’t. So we had a lot of research to do to figure out an itinerary that would allow us an opportunity to photograph some great locations, gave us some time and flexibility to adjust to weather and stuff, and fit in with being at the Borrowdale Hotel in time for the workshop. Initial ideas got juggled, then rejuggled. New ideas entered the mix and changed things a bit, and then yet another idea came into the mix. It was quite the process.

We ultimately settled on photographing in 4 key areas in the UK and Scotland. In order: (1) The Yorkshire Dales (with a one-day side trip to the southern part of the Lake District - more on that in a bit); (2) the Isle of Skye in Scotland; (3) Glencoe Scotland; and then (4) the Lake District Workshop.

We will drive from Newcastle, where our ferry arrives, to the Yorkshire Dales NP. There are plenty of places to photograph there, ranging from meadow landscapes to waterfalls and limestone pavement landscapes. We’re hoping to photograph some waterfalls and oak woodlands, but there are plenty of nice hikes in the park to give us a variety of landscapes to choose from.

We’ll only be photographing there for two half-days initially, because we’ll be running over to the southern part of the Lake District to do a one-day workshop with one of the photographers we enjoy watching on YouTube - Simon Booth. While watching one of his videos, Ann mentioned that he not only offers several-day workshops, he offers 1-on-1 sessions. We went over to his his website and found out he also offers 1-on-2 sessions. We contacted Simon, let him know what we were interested in and the dates that would work for us and he said sure, recommending that we photograph in the south part of the Lake District where he regularly holds workshops. So we’ll be heading over from the Yorkshire Dales to camp in a Rugby Team parking lot to meet up with him for a one day session, then head back to the Yorkshire Dales for two more days of photography.

After our two days of exploring the Yorkshire Dales comes the one long day of driving for the trip - the haul northward, from the Yorkshire Dales almost to the Isle of Skye (350 miles). We’ll be spending the night near a Scottish castle this side of Skye bridge that we hope to photograph that evening (and the next morning), but other than that, I think we are going to have to limit our “oh, my, let’s stop to photograph that!” moments during that drive.

However, once we have that one long drive behind us, we’ll have three days of photographing on the Isle of Skye. We have places to see and routes planned for each of the days, but it only takes about an hour and a half to drive from the top to the bottom of the island, so . . . there should be plenty of time to explore and to stop for the unexpected.

From Skye, it’s a two hour drive back south towards Glencoe. This was the location of one of the Covid-cancelled workshops with Joe Cornish and a place Ann and I have been talking about for years. There we’ll have 4 full days of photographing, which will give us the opportunity to explore the area and return to locations when the time/light/weather is best for good image making.

That Sunday will be another longer drive back south to the north part of the Lake District. We’ll likely leave early as usual and have plenty of time for short stops along the way. We check into the Borrowdale Hotel on Sunday, but check in for the workshop isn’t until Monday afternoon and the photography part of the workshop runs from Tuesday to Friday, so we’ll have plenty of time to settle in at the Borrowdale and to check out the immediate surroundings before the intensive week begins.

The workshop ends Friday afternoon and we’ll be heading towards our departure port, which is roughly a three hour drive away. Given we don’t have to be there until early afternoon, we may plan on stopping somewhere near the North Pennies AONB for an evening/morning photo session, or depending on how exhausted we are, just finding a place to crash for the night. I’m still working on that one.

So why are we so confident that we’ll find great photographic opportunities for this self-planned trip. There’s a couple of reasons. First off, there are Joe Cornish’s books from the 1990’s and 2000’s that document pretty much all of Scotland and the UK. We’ve got several of them and, based on his images, we know the landscape is full of opportunities. Then, of course, are the YouTube videos we’ve watched about certain locations, which reinforced the idea of traveling up to Glencoe as part of the trip and helped lock in Skye as part of it as well. And then there is a series of photographer’s guides (recommended by other YouTubers we watch - we’re talking about you Thomas Heaton) that provide sufficiently detailed maps and descriptions of locations to make one reasonably confident that not only will a particular location give you one nice view, it and the hike to it has plenty to offer the photographer.

And what is trip planning without paper maps? We are incredibly reliant on GPS these days, but I still have a hard time not going analog. Some of the maps we rely upon in planning are the same as in the us - it’s hard to beat the National Geographic adventure travel maps to get a feel for a landscape and how to get around in it. The road maps in Europe though are quite a bit different. So in addition to my large all-Europe road atlas, I purchased more detailed UK and Scotland road atlases. These are great for identifying where there are rest stops, refueling stations and things like that.

Fortunately, they all fit conveniently in the map case I used in the old Beast days. It fits nicely behind the driver’s seat in the bimobil as well.

Now, I guess you’re wondering whether we’re taking the bimobil (we still don’t have a name for her/him/they). That would be a legitimate question given our recent driving experience in Ireland. The answer is, naturally, hell yeah! Sure, I’ll be driving on the wrong side of the road, and sure, I’ll be sitting on the wrong side of the car for driving on the wrong side of the road and, yes, the bimobil is one hefty vehicle, but there are caravans galore in the UK! We’re just a bit heavier and taller than many of them, but not any wider. And that’s why we have all the road maps. Lesson learned from Ireland? Don’t drive on a three-numbered road (I.e., use the A9 and the A82, vs the B845 shortcut) or a no-numbered road until you have to. That’s what all the paper maps are for - I bought them for a reason (added bonus - on the smaller roads, they identify any low bridges . . . something we need to keep an eye on). Sure, our camper GPS has vehicle parameters - weight, height, width and length - so it knows what roads to avoid, but sometimes you have a road closure and have to figure out how to get around it (the GPS wants to go where it wants to go and is really difficult to change routes on).

So yes, we’ll be living and photographing out of the bimobil for the trip . . . except for the week of the Lake District Workshop where we’ll be living in luxury at the Borrowdale Hotel (where the bimobil will be sitting in their parking lot - we’ve already confirmed we can) near Keswick. We have have our key campsites reserved already (glad we did because several options closed on Sept 30 or October 15 (and we’ll hit one a couple of days before they close on Nov 1)), so we are ready to go!

As for camera gear, well, given the vehicle we’re brining, let’s just say anything and everything we’ve got!

So that’s the latest from Ann and Dan’s excellent adventures. You’ll be seeing a couple of more filler posts after this one while we’re on the road and then hopefully you’ll start seeing images from the trip and finding out how it went. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us! And keep whispering in your mind - stay to the left, stay to the left! Hopefully my subconscious will connect with yours.

2024 UK Trip

Thanks for visiting!

2024 UK Trip

Dan’s Portfolio

Figuring out what you’ve got.

Thanks for visiting!