Peak District (September 2021)

September saw a return to the Peak District, the first visit in more than 18months. It was an opportunity to re-engage with an area that I know well from past photography, a location that I enjoy for the open views, the tall gritstone edges and the rugged moorland:

After a walk along Stanage Edge my attention turned to the main event, golden hour photography on Higger Tor. It is a time when the setting sun paints the landscape with low warming rays, tracing the shapes of the rocks, whilst shadows lengthen and creep towards the night…a landscaper’s delight captured with an enthusiasm that reminded me of my first visits to the Peaks many years ago…  

Return to Woodland Photography (September 2021)

Autumn has to be my favourite season for woodland photography and it is, of course, all about light and colour. Instinctively as the calendar crosses into September I start to search out the venues that I might have avoided over the summer, put off by the overwhelming greenness. 

The first of these locations was the Foxcovert Nature Reserve and its neighbouring Watchwood. In truth I didn’t expect to find much seasonal change…it was far too early, but photography is good at abstracting, selecting only those things the photographer wants to show. In this case, the results gives an impression that the season was far more advanced than it actually was…for example, I spotted one particularly colourful sweet chestnut tree high in the canopy:

Stubble Lines (August 2021)

The final series of photographs from August continues the harvest theme of recent posts and features stubble lines in a field near to the Southwell Trail. I was particularly attracted to the range of golden tones with each stripe having a slightly different hue. Consequently, I found myself coming back to this field on more than one occasion. 

It is hard to put into words why I found the subject so captivating but suffice to say that it offered a distraction away from other events that have constrained my normal approach to photography over the summer. For a few minutes I was able to to engage with the simplicity of composition…a mindful release and an apsect of photography that I really value: