I have been doing a fair bit of work in the White Peak it would seem recently and Peaseland Rocks was one of my latest locations.

Peaseland Rocks is high above Wolfscote Dale where it meets Biggin Dale and the River Dove flows through it. Peaseland Rocks also looks directly up to Wolfscote Hill, which is a location you may remember I had shot a couple of nights before in the gusting winds.

I have to admit, I hadn’t found Peaseland Rocks on my own and a fellow photographer on Flickr posted a great shot from the place. It’s one of them places which if you didn’t know about you wouldn’t even know was there.

I had been meaning to check it out for quite some time, to see what all these dramatic views were about but when a friend invited me to go for sunrise I decided it was time I finally went.

We walked in from the Staffordshire village of Alstonefield, walking about a mile and a half in dark trying to navigate to get on location. On arriving at Peaseland Rocks it was obvious it was a great spot but it was also obvious that the surrounding hills were going to be blocking any light for some time.

That said, on arrival at Peaseland Rocks there was also about 95% cloud cover, so it looked like an early rise for nothing, that said I was glad to be out.

We waited around for a while, chatting and catching up as well as exploring the area to see if there would be any other compositions. Like I mentioned above, I’ve been doing a bit of work in the White Peak lately which usually I’d avoid in winter. This is because the White Peak usually looks dead and boring in winter as it’s very much foliage orientated. But with all the recent rains and mild weather the grasses have remained green and as long as you don’t pick a composition with too many dead trees in you can get away with it.

The clouds started to clear about 10 minutes before sunrise. Once the sun had started to come up, it was evident it would have been good to be on top of an unobscured hill as the sky lit up with evident strong directional sun. Nevermind, it was a location I had wanted to tick off and you have to make these sacrifices sometimes.

Eventually the sun had got high up enough to light up some of the limestone outcrops of Peaseland Rocks and the hills over the dale. I decided to do a panoramic here to try and capture as much of the light as possible. I think a return visit in May may be in order at sunrise (wild camp?) to see if I can get anything better.

Peaseland Rocks

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