It’s hard to believe that the third year of workshops that I’ve been running under the Natural Light Photography Workshops banner with fellow Yorkshire landscape photographer Sam Oakes has just come to a close.  We’ve had a great year – here are a few of the highlights…

 Despite the cold spring and the wet and windy autumn we’ve been blessed with pretty good weather for all of our workshop days out in the Yorkshire Dales this season.

The season got off to a slow start with a major snow fall on the morning of our first workshop in March so regrettably we had to postpone the visit to Aysgarth and West Burton until mid April, when the roads and footpaths were accessible again. Fortunately at the second attempt we got some good light for waterfall photography! Full Report…

Later in April we had our first visit to Bolton Abbey and Strid Wood for the year.  The late spring meant that there were no early bluebells in the woods but we had a great day photographing the priory ruins, reflections in the River Wharfe and moving water images at The Strid. Full Report…

The second visit to Bolton Abbey in May was much more spring-like, but still the dusky bluebells wood was rather disappointing – but in the woods on the other side of the River Wharfe we found one of the best crops of bluebells we’ve ever seen, which more than made up for it! Full Report…

Late spring saw our first visit to Malham for the year and sunny and mild weather made it a pleasant day photographing the woods at Janet’s Foss and the limestone of Gordale Scar and Malham Cove.  Full Report…

We were back at Malham for the first of two summer visits in July and sunhats and suncream were needed for out hottest workshop day of the year! Full Report…

For the second Malham visit in August we managed to miss the thunder storms which took place overnight (this became the theme for the year in the end!) and had a great day photographing the limestone country around Malham with a little more cloud interest in the sky than on the July visit.  Full Report…

We rounded off the summer workshops with a trip to Ribblehead and Twisleton Scar with some fantastic changing light up at the standing stone and a nice sunset on the limestone pavement at Ribblehead in the early evening.  Full Report…

Our visit to Aysgarth in October was a pleasant overcast day with great light for waterfall photography, and the rain held off until we got back to West Burton Waterfall at the end of the day.  On the drive home we encountered a huge thunderstorm – another storm narrowly missed!  Full Report…

Back at Bolton Abbey in November we had another overcast and mainly fine day which proved great for floating leaves in the River Wharfe and some amazing autumn colours in Strid Wood.  As we got back to the abbey at the end of the day the rain set in and on the way home we were treated to (you guessed it) another thunderstorm! Full Report…

All in all it’s been a great workshop year for us, with many of the workshop sold out and a bit of luck with the weather and some great light.  Judging by some of the results that we’ve seen in post-processing sessions (Sunday afternoon after the workshop day) we hope that there should be a few more personal Yorkshire Dales prints hanging on people’s walls by now.  We’re looking forward to the 2014 season already – we start again at Aysgarth in March and the current workshop dates are on the Natural Light Photography Workshops website.  We’ll also be doing one or two recces for potential new workshop days over the winter – so keep checking the website for news!