Curbar Inversion (January 2014)

Making several visits to Curbar Edge in the Peak District during January 2014 paid off with a fabulous day of photography. I was lucky enough to capture a full day of mistiness in the Hope Valley, the result of a cloud inversion. 

A cloud inversion occurs when a layer of cold air get trapped at ground level by warmer air above. 

The height of Curbar Edge provided an opportunity to get above the layer of cold air with spectacular views across a sea of mist just as dawn was approaching. The best shots were achieved when the first rays of sunlight grazed some of the features I had photographed on the previous visits including a partial worked and abandoned millstone:

The sunlight got stronger over the next hour as the sun continued to rise. Managing the exposures became harder as the dynamic range increased but I persisted with shots into the brightness. Many of the results were not processed at the time as I concentrated on the images shown above. However, the current lockdown provided an opportunity to revisit all of the photography from the morning and with a more systematic approach I was able to add the following images to the record of the day. This included a small selection taken later in the morning on Baslow Edge:

These were the results Baslow Edge using a few of the compositions I had taken on the previous visit. 

The photography continued after Baslow Edge and I will show the results in the next post which includes a trip to a misty Bolehill Wood followed by scenes from Surprise View and Higger Tor.