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.
What is Cardiff, the capital city of Wales? No particular image comes to mind, there’s the red dragon of the Welsh flag, the looming bowl of the rugby stadium laced with steel struts or maybe the other Millennium initiative, the waterfront of the redeveloped docks. Neither of those are particularly Cardiff nor uniquely Welsh. But I wouldn’t have expected to wake up in city centre Cardiff to find myself seeing eyeballing other bleary wakers across a concrete canyon in their corresponding concrete boxes high up in the vertical city. So this is Cardiff city centre, place of designer bars and boutique restaurants. The pale light of October dawn peeking through the concrete towers, no red dragons flying in the sky, not even a flag.
Breakfast with Duncan of the BBC, a fine start for my car trip to Cumbria; a treat in the autumn sunshine, a section crossing northwards up the western side of the UK. The colours of the trees progressing from glorious early autumn in Cardiff and Monmouthshire to full golden autumn in Lancaster and Kendal. Finally arriving to a warm and still sunny welcome at Mike’s in Keswick after 285 miles on the road.
Next day, a fine Lake District hike round Ennerdale
View across the valley of the river Severn from the ridge of the Malvern Hills across to the Vale of Berkeley and the Cotswolds Edge. A bracing wind cleared the air rewarding the chilly walk with a very English panorama. The river Severn is flowing through this vale in a shallow channel as it flows towards its estuary. The numerous oak trees are a reminder of the historic designation of the area in as the “Forest of Corse”.
Glacier des Bossons and the north face of Mont Blanc (4808 m.). Glorious view of the different stages of the glacier as it descends from the Bosses ridge and down through forest to the valley of Chamonix in French Savoie
“Young, fit and crippled”, the unfortunate but accurate description of many of the finishers of the Annecy MaXi-Race resting up with their supporters in afternoon sunshine on the grass of Le Pâquier and the Champ de Mars bordering the Lac d'Annecy in Savoie. The 2000 solo runners had left at 3AM for the 85km solo race over a challenging mountain course. Other starts for shorter distances happened later on in the day. There are several,sports acadamies in or near Annecy so there is a lot of local support for the runners.
The massive walls of the medieval fortress at Aigues Mortes on the Camargue, the embarkation town for the seventh and eighth crusades in 1248 and 1270 AD.The Burgundian King of France, Louis IX ordered the construction of the fortress in the Camargue marches and also a causeway to a quay a short distance away where the ships were able to berth. Burgundian France had no navigable harbour on the Mediterranean Sea until a century later when Louis XI incorporated Provence in to France in 1486. These days, the walls enclose an attractive tourist town with restaurants, bars and boutique shops.
