Travel
I'm lucky enough to travel a lot but I also aim to understand a place in some depth. So I like to find out about the local history, sociology, wildlife and local arts. I prepare for a trip by looking up photos of the famous sights, they're usually a good guide both about the local visual interest and also a warning of what has already been done or over-done.
I try to use the tools of modern photojournalism and photography to communicate how I feel about a place. You’ll see that I have used Portrait, Street, Interior, Historical, Abstract, Landscape, Historical, Wildlife, Phone-camera and Selfie genres at different times for specific effects.
Touring the Malvern Hills in a brand new Audi A1 hire car, just 17 miles on the clock when I received it. “Two wheels good, four wheels bad” (to misquote Animal Farm), but fun to drive on interesting roads, mostly clear of other traffic and with fine views of the Malvern Hills; the A1 was pretty good for the drive back on the motorways too.
Market day in Forcalquier in the square in front of the Concathédrale Notre Dame du Bourguet de Forcalquier in Provence; the trees revealing the solid 12th century architecture, so different to the graceful arcitecture of cathedrals from the north of France of the same period. It's easy to imagine the cathdral doubling as a fortress.
Zootermeer is a new town constructed on top of an old farming village between Den Haag, Gouda, Leiden and Rotterdam in The Netherlands. It’s almost the definitive South Holland suburbia, typical in that much of the land on which the estates have been built is 5m or more below the level of the North Sea. This situation is maintained by continuously pumping water up to the canals and dykes. The rectilinear style of late twentieth century urban architecture predominates in various configurations; circular features are extremely rare and just placing another square element at 45 degrees to the grid appears rebel!
The “Pearl of the Alps”, the lac d’Annecy, was as pretty as ever this weekend. People promenading on the green grass of Le Pâquier in the autumn sunshine. Swans scavenging happily around the Pont des Amours (“Lovers’ Bridge”). Most of the pleasure boats moored near the Château d’Annecy. But also quiet places to get away from the crowds and to enjoy the views of the big granite Alps in the distance.
West Penwith: Porth Nanven & Botallack mine ruins
A trip to almost the extreme west-most point of England. Porth Nanven and Cot Valley just south of Cape Cornwall, are famous to ornithologists for rare birds, to geologists for an exposure of a series of rock layers chronicling the periglacial eras which overlay the granite, also egg-shaped boulders which were shaped by the action of the sea when water levels were much higher. And Porth Nanven beach is famous to landscape photographers for long exposure images of The Brisons, a granite outcrop a few hundred metres offshore.
