Photos of places:
Photos taken with a Canon Powershot A640 compact digital camera. Scroll down for more images and click on thumbnails to pop-up a larger image.
A tale from climbing at Craig Dorys, Lleyn Peninsula (a beautiful but serious crag with inspiring climbing on fragile rock):
Here again, my favourite crag on the peninsula. I've had big inspirations to warm up on an easier route, then move on to a sterner challenge. But oh bugger, we've run out of time and this is no place to be benighted. I am a bit miffed as the crag has limited warm-ups for me to get used to it's intricacies, and I've now done them both - so how can I get prepared on the next visit??
In a moment of distraction, I pick up a curvacious little boulder and manouvre it onto another rock. It stays balanced. Hmmm, this is unexpected. I pick a slightly smaller but equally rounded boulder and see what happens. It also stays. And another... Foolishly, I am doing this in socks, as if I should be so careless with my feet after last time's extra-curricularly debacle. The prospect of broken toes keeps me....on my toes. Child-like play, but I've never really tried doing this before. As each stone stays - first time no less, I get the onsight! - I get a powerful feeling of being allowed to unlock a mystery without really understanding what I'm doing.
As I place the final pebble, something else is unlocked - this is the key, this is the warm-up for next time!! Forget an easier route: the balance, faith and inner calm used in building my tower (which quivers faintly in the breeze) are exactly the qualities I need to take onto the routes. Next time, next time...
(Mobile phone photos)
Searing sunset from Stanage.
Intelligence vs. Counter-intelligence: The unmistakable walk-in to Lower Sharpnose, North Devon coast.
Vapour trail above Clatteringshaws Loch, Scotland.
Moonrise in Scotland. More Black Metal album cover vibes.
Cottage in Scotland. I went to get a photo of the lush blue sky but didn't have anything good to frame it, and then found the cottage itself worked well - very homely looking I thought.
Corsock Church, Scotland.
Cloud strata over Staffordshire moorland. Taken on the last proper winter gritstone day we had - a beautiful day and I'd managed one of the best hidden gem routes around previously - Crystal Voyager at Bosley Cloud.
Tree at Black Rocks. I liked it because it looked like a crack in the sky...
The joys of 6 second shutter speed! Sunset over Leek, taken from the Roaches Skyline. Being able to capture the sky, town lights, and lake was somewhat pleasing to me.
Moorland in the snow... I like the sheer bleakness of this, and the fuzz was partly deliberate. Black Metal album cover style!
The joys of 10 megapixels! Being able to crop this rather ominous section of sky out of the whole image and retain the quality was somewhat pleasing to me.
First proper picture I got with the new camera - the obligatory Sheffield sunset.
