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.
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.
Falmouth, the deep water harbour in Cornwall that’s as famous for its seafood as its naval military history, now seems interesting on a number of levels. The naval dockyards are still operating and there’s now also a flourishing merchant marine and leisure port. The deep water port, reputedly the third deepest in the world, means that cruise ships visit Falmouth. There's a famous picture of the Cunard liner QE2 moored in Falmouth Bay. The mild climate (almost frost-free) allows semi-tropical gardens and attracts a strong alternative and a serious arts communities as well as the folk enjoying their retirement. The independent coffee shop and bar scene offers many possibilities. And a fine selection of beaches with water warmed by the Gulf Stream, currently 15.1ºC sea temperature at the beach, not that I tested that myself!
Passing through Truro, the capital city of Cornwall, en route for Falmouth. Truro isn’t simply a country town, it’s the centre of the Cornish peninsular. Unlike most other country towns in England, everyone in Cornwall passes through Truro once in a while either for work and business or for schools and hospitals. Alighting from the train from London Paddington, the effect of the Gulf Stream on the climate is striking; the red arms of the semaphore railway signals look like something which Londoners only see now on a model railway. Truro’s cathedral is a relatively recent Gothic revival design which towers over the town. Cats don’t have a hard time in this town.
“Dear old dirty London” isn’t so dirty any more, in fact it’s rather nice to come back to.
Home after a summer of much travelling to some fine places with exotic names, it’s time to enjoy London again; the city taken for granted by us Londoners but still mobbed by many tourists and people seeking better lives.
Starting from Barons Court, my local tube station (from where I have departed for so many adventures) the brick architecture and rounded design of the old trains seem friendly and warm compared with so much tech-look steel and concrete elsewhere; then meeting for coffee a friend in Foyles’ stylish new bookshop in Charing Cross Road, walking homewards from the burlesque of Chinatown, Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road and through the monumental calm of the war memorials at Hyde Park Corner amidst the thunder not of guns but of the traffic.
