June 17th 2025
Introduction
When does a warm spring finish and warm summer begin? There were cool rainy days which made me think we’re in for bad months, like last year, but the sun returned. The seasonal change wasn’t clear.
There’s a field where I often walk, especially in spring. Everything was flattened and ruined after winter floods. It looked like nothing would grow. But the meadowsweet is back, encouraged with the warmth, a faint scent of almond in tiny buds.
For this Footnotes I’ll discuss photography in relation to Don MCcullin and landscape. There are walk ideas, an AI discussion, and a forest video I found. It’s mostly nonsense at YouTube but with occasional gems you wouldn’t otherwise see.
Evening Walk
This is my most frequent sizable walk. It takes about two hours, not long, but it’s not a local meander. The birds are notable. In the woods, blackbirds. Above the fields, skylarks. I would be content with just those two, more precious because they are seasonal. When do skylarks stop singing? I’m not sure but it’s a summery delight.
War and Landscape
There are stories about men returning from World War Two when the first thing they did was visit a loved landscape. In one story I read, he walked Buachaille Etive Mòr in Scotland.
Don MCcullin used to be a war photographer but troubled with the ethics of his job. That’s a subject for discussion while reading Susan Sontag’s book.
There isn’t a conclusive answer to this, how to regard war photography, but MCcullin recently made dismissive remarks. “We’re nothing special” he said, countering any notion of importance. We’re “opportunists” he insisted, suggesting voyeurism more than heroism.
Lee Miller’s photograph, signalling victory not conflict, I find very disturbing. Could I have done that? I don’t think so. I would have felt contaminated with evil, which couldn’t be washed away.
MCcullin now spends his time photographing landscape. His work is nothing special, but it’s an interesting story.
Stillness is a good description in relation to war. The screech and crash of guns, missiles and bombs must be horrendous. Noise memory is a P.T.S.D. symptom of Charles Moon in A Month in the Country. He still hears the guns.
The silence of the hills is a counterpoint resource. We’re not in war zones but car engines, buses, and city soundscape is the same idea.
Intelligence
I wonder if AI is being trained on weather models. Maybe with enough data, current and historic, forecasts would be useful. I don’t read them much now unless I’m planning a trip, when they are better than nothing.
One exception I’m aware of is storm forecasts in the Pyrenees which are fairly reliable although not conclusive. Worried in my tent, I watched silent lightning. No thunder, no rain, when I was dangerously exposed, and it could have been serious.
Intelligence is an interesting subject. I wouldn’t recommend Daniel Goleman’s book because it’s banal and repetitive, but the idea is important. It’s easy to grasp, should be grasped, and obvious. A parent with a young child uses emotional intelligence. I did it myself when I taught children.
For another Footnotes I might tell the tale of Splash The Rabbit, who died in the morning, and how I sat with the child for an hour with paint, pencils, and paper. Tears to begin with, then she left with a smile saying “that’s the best art I’ve ever done.”
You can ask Grok to build a computer game and it does so. It uses HTML, JavaScript, and SVG or Scalable Vector Graphics, the code which creates shapes, colours, and digital movement.
The critical juncture for AI is when it reaches Artificial General Intelligence. That’s when people meet in a coffee shop and talk about work, a novel they’ve read, the news, the good coffee, the jazz which is playing, which one of them recognises, and says they have the album which is influenced by John Coltrane. Do you know, incidentally, Coltrane’s music was described as sheets of sound?
That continues for two hours. AI analyses language in terms of quantity, quality, input, output, and data. It recognises patterns, but the sum total of what we do is not a pattern, and ĺanguage doesn’t entirely capture a human exchange.
Who are they drinking that coffee? What are they thinking inside, not expressed outside? What happens if one briefly speaks French for context, a quotation, or fun? That too could potentially be analysed but the AGI demand, for that reason alone, becomes vastly deeper and in need of even more computers.
Computers won’t have emotional intelligence, by definition, although I could envisage a useful weather application. Funded and developed, no doubt, for military reasons like GPS.
Woods
“Going to the woods is going home” said John Muir. Much as I like hills, I also love the energy of woods. They’re alive, and you feel it and hear it. Wise, you might think, growing quietly, slowly, and calmly. Asking for nothing, sadly diminishing, but we can give back to the trees with a human reply.
“People might come here for your art, but maybe they leave with the forest” is my favourite line in this little film.
Featured Walks
This site is a new discovery for me with information about UK walks and beyond. Maps, descriptions, camping advice, it’s all there for routes in Scotland, Turkey, the US and more.
I started seriously walking the Lake District thirty years ago. I used guest houses for perhaps fifteen years, then camp sites. I’ve wild camped a little but it didn’t attract so much when I knew the fells so well from day walks. I used guide books more than maps but now, and for a long time, haven’t needed either. I have an internal map.
Walks like this are thus curious for me when I know the places but not the joined together experience. If the Lake District is a new discovery, it would be marvellous.
If you want to know about my skylark walk, here are directions. Drive out of Poynton passing Waitrose on your left. In two or three miles, in the countryside, there’s a parking area on the left with a civic noticeboard. Walk through the woods for a few minutes, turn left, and you see the West Lodge Gate into Lyme Park. Wander and explore. This side of the park is on the edge of quiet countryside and feels the same.
That’s how I did it. I never used a map or book, finding it all randomly and slowly with repeated visits. I do recommend however the woodland path on the right, beside the stream, which is the most direct route into open spaces and the Peak District. Notice two beautiful larch trees, and the oak tree in my photograph.