At Hartland Quay and the surrounding area it’s the sea cliffs and their eroded remains protruding from the sandy beach like skeletons of long dead creatures that I find most interesting. They were laid-down as sediments in a shallow tropical sea, rich in marine life during the geological Carboniferous period and have been compressed and transformed into alternating layers of sandstone, shale and limestone during the intervening millennia.

The long, often blue sky days of summer are a photographically challenging time but this year I wanted to make the most of them by doing something different and pushing my photography into an area not previously explored. After much deliberation two ideas remained. The use of colour, patterns, shapes and textures as a primary subject with images bias towards simplicity and the second idea was to photograph people rock climbing.

Like many photographers, the Summer is not my favourite time for landscape photography. I find it hard to get inspired and I'm not sure I fully understand why. Last year the profile of Infrared photography was raised in the media by multiple YouTube influencers and this got me thinking about my summertime doldrums!

The North West Highlands are very special; It and its Northern neighbour, Assynt, are two of the few remaining truly wilderness landscapes in the UK. The area can be bleak and imposing but it most certainly always forces you to appraise your significance in the environment. They are a wonderful juxtaposition of craggy coastlines, turquoise waters and white sandy beaches with dark and imposing expanses of impenetrable moorland separated by large mountains and rivers.

Last year I started to explore ‘The Forest’ as it’s known to locals. This summer I spent lots of time exploring a handful of areas with a mind for Autumn woodland photography. This really helped identify those places that didn’t have potential meaning I could focus on selected areas during the Autumn period.

On the Western edge of the Cotswolds is the village of Cranham. Hidden away under the trees in this traditionally sheep farming area are decades-old drystone walls which are now gracefully decaying.

To the East of Wickwar are several small woods. Nestled within the young, straight trees are curvey trees. These contrast wonderfully against their straight neighbours.

…one night was stormy with heavy rain, thunder and the odd burst of lighting illuminating the inside of my tent. By pre-dawn the storm had passed and there were stars in the sky. Hoping for some mist that would separate the island from the background - image above - I headed out in the dark arriving just before sunrise.

Battery Point at Portishead is one of those places I've known about for years but never actually photographed as its so close to home. Partly due to Covid travel restrictions I made it a bit of a mission recently.…

This was one of the early outings this year with the new Fujifilm GFX100S. Using greater than ISO 400 on my previous landscape camera would have resulted in significant noise, however, the GFX100S is a monster. The above photograph was made at ISO 1250 and has little noise. Its Dynamic range is also significantly wider making this high contrast image possible with a single exposure.

In an age where image manipulation is so prevalent the statement 'A photograph never lies' has, unfortunetly, lost its meaning. But whilst this photograph is pretty much how it was, I can tell you that those nice warm colours lie!

I could imagine them silently multiplying until they had consumed the ice like tiny preditors…

Avoiding the temptation of arboretums, I made a concerted effort this year to explore somewhere not far away, somewhere I really should know much, much better. The Forest of Dean is about 15 miles away and sits between Chepstow and Ross-on-Wye on the Western side of the river Severn. This year I started by thinking carefully about why previous trips hadn't worked and what I could do better.

On one morning during my stay at Bridge of Orchy in Scotland I awoke to find everything covered in soft, white fluffy snow. It was a sight to behold. There was only the occasional muffled sound of a car on the normally busy A82 due to the still lightly falling snow. With little to no wind the trees were laden with perhaps 2 - 3 inches of snow and their branches bent over under the weight. It was definitely a photography day!

Shortly after arriving at Bridge of Orchy a day started with the hills obscured behind thick grey clouds, there was a biting cold wind and snow was falling at road level. It looked unpleasent outside the hotel windows! Inside the hotel, dry and warm, I reasoned that if the weather broke there would be some good photography so, suitably booted and dressed for a day on the Scottish hills in winter I headed out and up one of the hills overlooking Loch Tulla. Not that you could see the loch or much else! Fortunetly, I had scouted the lower paths the previous day and was confident the higher path would be ok.

February is generally acknowledged to be the snowiest month in Scotland. Most years it's a fairly safe bet that there will be snow on the mountains, probably down to about 500 metres. At lower altitudes the snow often falls as rain so any snow at ground/road level is often wet and doesn't hang around for long. By February the days are getting longer, there is more light and it's possible to shoot all day as the sun doesn't climb too high in the sky.

Christmas Day 2019 and the weather finally turned nice for a while. The wind dropped and the cloud and sea spray disappeared - it was a joy to be out at first light with the camera. :-)

Leaving the truck in the little car park behind the tea shop the sky was still dark but with a few stars twinkling overhead I knew it was at least partly clear. So, with a growing sense of anticipation I stumbled up the narrow track to the top of the cliffs.

Christmas day 2019 was the best day of the entire Christmas week in Cornwall. The strong, gusty winds had stopped and there was a bright, diffuse light thanks to some thin cloud. The day had started early with a successful trip to Porthgwarra for sunrise - more on that in a later post - followed by a lazy hotel breakfast and planning for the rest of the day. Given the bright, diffuse lighting I thought Sennen beach would be good for some intimate landscapes.