Winter Snow Tree · James Lomax - The Walking Photographer

Winter Snow Tree

Saturday February 28, 2009

Why I Walk And Escape: The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori Extracts from a new essay, part of a series. Technology is often an extension of human faculties. A microscope, telescope and camera extend our vision. The telephone extends our ability to talk. A computer extends our nervous system, thinking, and emotions. A bicycle and car extend our capacity to walk. However technology doesn’t always work. One of the most frustrating experiences I know is working with a slow…
Lake District Walking At Buttermere: Red Pike, High Stile and High Crag are the three peaks on the ridge walk above Buttermere. I think it’s one of the very best Lake District walks with spectacular views. On one side you see Grasmoor, Dale Head and distant Skiddaw and Blencathra; on the other side you enjoy Great Gable, the Scafells and Pillar. This is hill walking at its best. When I set off on this walk I wasn’t sure if I’d continue…
Lake District Attractions: Castlerigg Stone Circle: I have fond memories of this place – Castlerigg stone circle, in the hills above Keswick in the northern Lake District. In warm summer time I have undertaken long walks, and short rest walks, then come up here in the evening to round off the day. I had some food with me once but it’s a bracing place, very exposed, not really suitable for a peaceful rest. I prefer to have food down by the…
Peak District Walk: Clough House And Cumberland Brook: From Manchester and other areas too what’s remarkable about the Peak District is how easily you get to it. As such, there are plenty of attractive day walks like this one, starting at a place called Clough House then climbing up beside Cumberland Brook to finish, if you wish, with refreshments at the Cat And Fiddle pub. I decided not to visit the pub actually, because I wanted the outdoors not rip-off UK prices. As…
Peak District Anniversary And Political Reflections: The Peak District National Park became the United Kingdom’s first national park on 17 April 1951. Statistically, the area is enormously popular sitting as it does between Manchester and Sheffield west and east, and north of Nottingham and Derby. It’s accessed quite easily from Manchester, indeed you can reach its edges in around thirty five minutes. This reason alone is why I’ve become increasingly fond of the place and I think this is more than…
Spring: Fog Lane Park Manchester: About ten days ago the media were saying the bizarrely long winter we’ve had would continue until the end of April. I knew it was nonsense. That is, it might be true, or it might not, and it was mere entertainment material which sells newspapers and generates internet gossip. It still might be true, or it might not, but current indications are spring has finally, belatedly, but convincingly arrived. The dreadful cold has stopped, we’ve had…
Walking The Peak District: Above Erwood Reservoir: What I show in this video is a lovely short walk along a place called Foxlow Edge, which is above Erwood Reservoir in the UK Peak District. I think this winter has been record breaking, not so much for its general severity as it’s prolonged nature. Back in November 2012 I remember feeling right, here we go again, several months of depressing gloom in another British winter. And it hasn’t yet stopped – I refer to “winter”…
Thinking Photography: The Decisive Moment And Landscape: In this video I present a few ideas about photography and how they apply to outdoors photography in particular. I describe the ‘decisive moment’ and how it’s a useful concept, and how you are involved when you photograph nature, mountains, and the landscape, and how that differs from ‘street’ photography. Henri Cartier-Bresson was a famous photographer who coined the phrase ‘the decisive moment’ which in some respects lies at the heart of photography. Walking the hills,…
Peak District Walking: The Goyt Valley: I’ve heard the Peak District is the most popular UK National Park. I find this curious because it is not, surely, the most attractive or adventurous place compared for example to the Lake District or Snowdonia. It consists of relatively flat and gentle hills and peat moorland, divided into the Dark Peak in the north and the White Peak in the south. These names refer to gritstone and limestone respectively. Other reasons why the Peak…
My First Wild Camp: Wild camping is a means to an end, which is a greater and more prolonged immersion in the hills. It’s the hills – nature – which is really the point of it. Otherwise, you would do it in the city if it were possible, or your back garden which is pointless. Camp sites are an intermediary experience and I remember my first time there too, the joy and fun and glee of it, waking at…