Blog Archives
As a teenager I read The Amateur Photographer at the library. It was a weekly magazine, and I liked going there on Saturday. Meanwhile I was studying photography at school and built a darkroom at home. I didn’t have the money for expensive equipment so used my father’s Zenit camera, bought a cheap Praktica, then […]
Surely if wind can, if rain can. But which cannot be held never be held and is no flower – Cormac McCarthy And a river runs through it – Norman Maclean Who made the world, asks Mary Oliver in her poem The Summer Day. It’s a simple line I return to. She changes the usual […]
Do I dare Disturb the universe? – T.S. Eliot There’s a little known Canadian film called I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing. I watched it many years ago. A friend, who was a Buddhist, said “it’s a nice film” in an emphatic way which caught my attention. I’ve watched it perhaps eight times since, and […]
As a walking photographer, you find shots where a tripod isn’t needed and which are not achievable if you’re using one. The view above is from a mountain called Le Petit Vignemale in the French Pyrenees. It’s a hard climb getting up there, and as part of a two or three week trek a tripod […]
When you teach photography in college there’s a background plan. Students don’t see it but it’s the shape of what they learn, when they learn it, and why. On a PGCE training it’s called the scheme of work and lesson plans. You are examined for this, because it’s an essential part of teaching. If Ofsted […]
Another way critics have of describing nature writing is to call it the literature of place – Barry Lopez The sky is white as clay, with no sun – Phillip Larkin The walk starts with a choice. Turn left, go down a pathway worn in the grass. The first time I went there felt like […]
Then spoke the thunder – T.S. Eliot Religions don’t interest me but philosophy does. Not so much the scholasticism of Western endeavour, but elsewhere and from ancient time. Aslan tells the children in Narnia: you don’t understand, there’s an old magic, much older, which always rules. One of the principles of Sufism is called time […]
Creatures, I give you yourselves, said the strong, happy voice of Aslan – C.S. Lewis “It’s beautiful isn’t it” she said and I replied “yes but not much autumn left. We’re on the cusp of winter.” She agreed, the Park Ranger, and referred to her cold morning. I was there for autumn, not winter, but […]
Of all seasons autumn has most effect on me. I love spring and summer with the flowers and big warm days. Don’t like winter or its approach. The ninth month of the year is getting close and a time, for me, of dread. Last winter was particularly hell-like and my lockdown escape consisted of drives […]