Caldon Canal ~ Leek Branch
A landscape photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
If you’ve read any of my last few blogs you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m a moaner, especially when the weather gets a mention. At the risk of sounding like a moaner . . . the weather has been shocking this autumn. Wind and rain, when it wasn’t windy it was raining and when it wasn’t raining it was very windy. To cap it all off Storm Claudia has just blown through this weekend and I was sure it was taking the last of the autumn leaves with it.
Monday, November 17th however was looking reasonably calm, and sunny the question was . . . had Storm Claudia left any leaves on the trees. It was a toss up between heading over to Cannock Chase, or having a wander along the Leek branch of the Caldon Canal. The canal won.
I decided to carry on where I’d left off the last time I was along here, so I parked up at Deep Hayes, around bridge 6. My plan was to walk the remainder of the canal heading into Leek to see what was what.
I’d actually done a bit of a recce in the rain without my camera a few weeks back with this shoot in mind. From that recce I knew this was pretty much a do it in the morning job to get the best of the light. With the contours of the land and the direction of the light it was always going to be well past sunrise before it got onto the canal, so I wasn’t sure how much contrast there’d be.
There was still a bit of autumn colour around and the chance of getting a few reflection shots. If I’m honest I think the light was a bit too contrasty but it was what it was and it wasn’t raining, or too windy!
Autumn colours along the Leek branch of the Caldon canal.
I started at bridge 6 and focused for the main part on trying to get some nice reflections.
As I made my way along the canal the damage from Storm Claudia was very visible. There were trees down along the canal in three, or four places. Speaking to the chap who was in the narrow boat below he said he’d been in touch with the Canal Trust and was waiting for them to clear the damage. He said he wasn’t sure how long that would take them and that he wasn’t relishing reversing back along the canal.
After a bit of scrambling to get through, and over the various trees I continued on towards bridge 7. Like the last time I was photographing the canel it was very slow progress. Today was no different and it seemed like I was stopping every few yards to grab a shot.
Autumn colours and reflections along the Leek branch of the Caldon Canal.
As it was a clear blue sky day I was deliberately trying to exclude as much of the sky as I possible. It was a bit of a balancing act as depending on the angle of the shot I was finding that whilst I’d exclude the sky up above, it’d be there in the reflection. I was pleased that I was aware of this and trying my best for the compromise as it showed I was thinking about the shots, and not just snapping away.
I also played around with the polariser. Again this was a bit of a balancing act. I didn’t want the polariser to kill the reflection, but I did want a bit of the glare to be taken off the water. By and large I think I got the balance right.
I eventually found myself at Leek tunnel and I debated on whether to go up and over to photograph the last bit but I talked myself out of it. It wasn’t so much laziness on my part, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself it was more of a time thing really.
Leek tunnel on the Caldon canal.
I’d spent a good few hours photographing what is relatively speaking a short walk and by this time the sun was well up. I’d taken all the shots so far with the 24mm - 120mm f/4 lens and my plan was to put the 14mm - 30mm f/4 on to shoot some wider shots on the way back. Knowing I was likely to be out for a while longer, and that the angle and harshness of the sunlight was going to be working against me I set off back towards Deep Hayes.
Swapping to the wide lens didn’t last long. For some reason I wasn’t happy with the photographs I was taking. I can’t quite put my finger on it other than to state the obvious that they were “too wide”.
I popped the 24mm - 120mm f/4 back on but other than grabbing a couple of opportunistic images of canal traffic and people going about their business I’d pretty much got what I’d wanted on the way into Leek.
With the wide angle shots not working for me I found myself back at Deep Hayes a bit sooner than I’d anticipated and even though I’d only looked at the photographs on the back of the camera I was very happy with the what I’d captured today. Yes, they were a bit too contrasty but even given Storm Claudia had just passed through there was more colour than I’d expected and the reflections weren’t too bad. All in all a very enjoyable morning.
You can view more images of the Leek Branch of the Caldon Canal and my gallery of other Staffordshire locations.
