Michael Cummins is a professional landscape photographer and an excellent one at that. His website has incredible galleries of stunning photos on it, a place I have spent many hours. Michael very kindly offered to spend the morning with us at The Roaches, which is location number 70 in the book. The alarm was set for 4 a.m, it was much easier to get up for this one, we were excited. It had been a clear and cold night which usually leads to one thing... mist! Mist brings atmosphere and is one of the key ingredients of a great sunrise landscape photo in the Peak District.
We got to the base of The Roaches at about 5 a.m, the ascent wasn't too troublesome nor was it too steep, not sure whether our legs believed that though. Michaels vast experience was invaluable, he showed us some amazing viewpoints, it was hard to choose just one. As the sun started to rise the sky began turning a gorgeous mix of pink and orange, it was breathtaking. The mist covering Tittesworth Reservoir stuck around for longer than we expected too, it all made for a fantastic scene. The moment we had been waiting for finally came, the sun just started to hit the top of Hen Cloud as well as the rocks in front of us, we took the shot, it's quite possibly my favourite shot of all time:
We could have quite happily finished there but Michael had a few other options for us, we jumped at the chance to visit some more viewpoints with him. We had a look at a lone tree just at the front of The Roaches as well as a lovely composition near Roach End Barn. We finished the morning with a quick trip to another barn near the Winking Man pub. We got home at about 7:30 a.m, it had been an incredible morning. Both of us would like to extend our thanks to Michael, the support he has given us has been mega :)
This was the photo of the lone tree, the mist was still lingering around, the atmosphere it helps to create is wonderful:
Michael managed to capture an absolutely outstanding photo of Grace too, he has really set the standard for Grace portraits!
