thought.photos

occasional snapshots of thought

Posts from the “Photography” Category

A stunning week in Spring

Posted on 13th April 2023

For the second year running I had planned to combine a week’s walking in the Lakes with a few days in Snowdonia (or Eryri as the national park is now called). In spring 2021, my plans were thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic with the lockdown not being eased until May. This year my plans had to be abandoned when, just as I was preparing to leave home, a large crack appeared from top to bottom of the Honda’s windscreen. Inexplicably, it would be two weeks before a replacement windscreen could be fitted. I had no option but to cancel the trip to North Wales, and go straight to the Lakes. Once again though, I’d need a hire car.

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Categories: Fell Walking, Landscape, Life/Personal, Photography

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A Walk on St. George’s Day

Posted on 24th July 2021

Restrictions have been eased a little, but we’re still pretty much in lockdown. Teaching has come to an end for the year (my 26th in higher education), and normally I’d be reporting on a visit to the Lake District. Rewind 12 months, and I was saying the same thing. Back in December I had, rather hopefully, booked a week in the Lakes for April but YHA had refunded my money – ditto last year. I am, however, hoping to get up there at the end of May after the next easing of restrictions – my room is booked and my fingers are crossed. As I did last year, I took a weeks’ leave anyway. Fortunately (or ironically, whichever way you want to look at…

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Categories: Landscape, Life/Personal, Photography

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Loose Ends and Rainbows

Posted on 16th November 2019

So I’d completed the Wainwrights and you might think that would be that. However, despite a final tick in the 214th box, it didn’t really feel like a completion. I didn’t have a complete photographic record of all the summits, and since this challenge had become mildly obsessive, that bugged me. During my early walks I wasn’t particularly focussed on photographing summits because I didn’t even know that I might be attempting a completion. And then there was the time I lost two days worth of photographs when the SD card in my camera failed. In short, I needed to return to the Lakes to complete the set. Earlier this year, over supper at YHA Eskdale, I was asked whether I was an incrementalist…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Landscape, Photography

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Unfinished Business in Langdale

Posted on 27th August 2016

For the second year running, I made an August trip to the Lake District with my daughter, Tilly. She’s a very good walking companion with plenty of experience from her Duke of Edinburgh Award and scouting expeditions and it makes for a welcome change to the solo walking, which I usually do. The object of this visit was to take in some classic walks, the Langdale Pikes and the Kentmere Round and thereby get close to finishing the Central Fells and starting the Far Eastern Fells but as with most of my trips so far, our plans were compromised by the weather.

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal, Photography

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Landscape & Nostalgia

Posted on 3rd July 2015

Almost exactly 20 years ago, Simon Schama’s book Landscape & Memory was published. It’s not an easy read but it became a significant influence on the way I taught Landscape Architecture. Essentially, the book describes “landscape” as being a construct within the mind of the individual rather than an objective entity whose constituent parts are rock, water and vegetation. Schama believes that nature and human perception are indivisible and that “Before it can ever be a repose for the senses, landscape is the work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock”.

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Categories: Books, Fell Walking, Landscape, Life/Personal, Photography

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