Behind the image: The Island in the Lake

In October 2018, just after the awards ceremony for the Trierenberg Super Circuit , we took a short trip through central Europe and visited the most iconic and best-known location in Slovenia : Lake Bled.

This beautiful lake lies at 470 metres above sea level, measures 2,120 metres long by 1,380 metres wide, and has an average depth of 30 metres.

In the middle is Slovenia’s only natural island, home to several buildings including the 15th-century Church of St Mary.

That morning I planned to shoot from a walkway beside the lake, but changed my mind at the last minute and raced uphill to the viewpoint used for this photograph.

Many photographers were already waiting for sunrise, so I had to find a small gap between them to take my photographs. 

To include the whole lake, I photographed at 16 mm for around an hour as the light rose. With so many photographers there, I could only try a couple of compositions.

Back at the computer, I cropped the image to frame the lake more closely, as the wide angle had made it look too distant. I then applied a substantial edit to enhance the sunrise light and colours, creating a pleasing atmosphere that matched the morning I had experienced.