Recreating a Cover...More Difficult Than You Might Think!

Sometimes when I’m in the Lake District the fresh air just goes to me head and I find myself doing soothing a little bit…well, dotty. 

A few weeks ago was one of those times. I happened to be walking with my beloved on the shores of Buttermere, and my beloved happened to be wearing a red jacket. And, as it happens, the shores of Buttermere are the background to my most recent book cover and the foreground features a figure — a woman, but never mind — in a red jacket.

And so I thought…wouldn’t it be fun to recreate the photograph on the book cover?

Now, I knew before I started on this ridiculous venture that it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew the photograph in the cover was a composite, for example, but I did think we might be able to find the right spot. It was pretty easy to line up the right area, generally speaking, with Fleetwith Pike in the background and Green Crag just to its right. 

But I couldn’t get the right bit of shoreline. It as starting to drive me mad. When I found a bit of ground that looked as if it might work, the line of sight to the fells was all wrong and there was an extra bit of mountain in the background — Brandreth, I think, quite obscuring Green Crag. It must have been cropped out of the design. And as for the shoreline…well, the picture was completely different to what was in front of me. 

I don’t know when the photograph was taken, of course. If it was last summer, when the water level was exceptionally low, the topography of Buttermere, like that of all the lakes and tarns, would have looked completely different. That might have explained why the only way I could have got the figure lined up correctly was to have Beloved standing in the waster. And no, he wasn’t up for that. 

And then there was the light. The cover had the figure in the foreground and the coat was bright, bright red. Enhanced, probably, or maybe the image had been bright anyway. Bt it was nine o’clock in the morning in my world and the sun…well, the sun had just popped above the level of the fell, in completely the wrong place to take a photograph, and so everything looked completely washed out. 

I got the clouds, though. The was a given. 

Have a look at my sad attempt and compare it with the rather wonderful cover for Death by Dark Waters. Then laugh at my ineptitude…and marvel at etc skill of the cover designer.