Mendips and Somerset Levels photography course images
Images shot by Nigel during his Mendips and Somerset Levels photography course, 19th Sept 2026
Cheddar Gorge and Ham Wall Nature Reserve, Somerset
Click on any image to launch a slide show.
This Mendips and Somerset Levels photography workshop was the first of my autumn one-day courses. After a summer of almost endless sunshine, it would have been fair to expect that this day would be no different. However, it was not to be. Grey skies as we arrived at Cheddar, soon turned into increasingly frequent and nasty showers whipping in from the southwest. We did manage to get in some photography up on the cliffs of Cheddar Gorge, taking advantage of the gaps between the showers to grab our cameras and set up a few compositions looking across the cliffs and gnarled trees.
Eventually, however, it all became a bit too much as the showers started to merge together. So we beat a retreat back to the cars and headed off to our second location, the lovely lowland Avalon marshes, in particular Ham Wall Nature Reserve, in the heart of the Somerset Levels. These wet marshlands are the very opposite of the dry (even when it’s raining!) limestone Mendip Hills to the north, so quite a contrast in terms of photo location.
Thankfully, at Ham Wall the rain amounted to no more than a few spots, and as afternoon turned into evening we actually had a few glimpses of blue sky. This was our best session of photography, the mostly steely light enabling some atmospheric views across the marsh’s lakes, and over to iconic Glastonbury Tor. Despite the occasional breaks in the clouds, however, there was to be no dramatic sunset; just a gradual loss of light levels. Time to call it a day.
The images in this gallery represent a sample of what I shot during the day while demonstrating and running this Mendips and Somerset Levels photography workshop. I hope you like them.
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