When I reached this area I’d only been walking in the Pyrenees for a few hours. The nearest town is Vielha, from which you have to get down through the Vielha tunnel and then start to climb from the refuge. I showed a few photographs of these lakes before, including a tent shot showing where I slept on my first walking night. And I’ve written about how that felt in my report – click to my Words section to find it: Pyrenees 2012. I knew, wandering these lakes, they were photogenic and beautiful. What I didn’t realise is how many decent photographs I had which means this one and one or two more don’t fit the narrative of my previous images. I’m back in Manchester now, the clocks have changed to make winter darker than it already is, and I’m looking at this lovely photograph dreading the months to come. Photographically, what we might notice is the soft gradations of light in the water, how deep blue it is, and how it contrasts with the rocky hollow in which it rests. Water needs a space to inhabit. Rock provides that space. Rock thus appears to be stronger because it is harder, but the nature of water is different and actually more enduring on its own terms.
Mountain Memories
Thursday November 1, 2012
- Lake District Walking At Buttermere (2)
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I got so much great footage walking across Red Pike, High Stile and high Crag – then further to Haystacks and Fleetwith Pike – there was sufficient material for another video. That’s what you see here. I don’t talk and narrate so much in this video but the talking I do is only here (not in the other video) and towards the end of the day at Fleetwith Pike. If you liked the first video you will…
- Why I Walk And Escape
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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…