ONE DAY LIKE THIS (Part 41)
Live Your Life of Stupid Luck (9 October - 15 October)
A warm welcome to a much delayed post in my Sheep | Song | Photograph series. These were intended to be weekly but have consistently failed to hit that target for most of the last three months. I will insist on going on holiday to amazing photographic locations with friends old and new and therefore failing to get any writing done. One thing that never changes is the length of the post, far too long to be seen in full in an email. If you do want to see it in all its glory (and why wouldn’t you?) then use the link to view in your browser of choice or the Substack app.
My wife, Pip has become used to dealing with a sheep related crisis whilst I’m away, and this year was no exception. I’m sure you will have heard that this year in the UK, it is a ‘mast’ year. For those that don’t know, The Woodland Trust describe it as follows:
Every few years, some species of trees and shrubs produce a bumper crop of their fruits or nuts. The collective term for these fruits and nuts is ‘mast’, so we call this a mast year.
Oaks are quite keen on doing this, as I understand it the last time was 2022 and the most prolific year on record was 2013. Nobody is yet prepared to say how this year compares but the anecdotal evidence, specifically the large numbers of cattle and sheep dying from having eaten a surfeit of acorns, in this part of the country would suggest records are tumbling.
So, with me away in Scotland and neighbours reporting losses, Pip noticed several of our sheep spending way too much of their time under one, relatively small, oak tree in the field they’ve been occupying since breaking out of their summer grazing in protest at the lack of grass. She had no choice but to move them into the one remaining field we have available that allows the sheep no access to fallen acorns. We are now in the ridiculous situation of having fields containing plenty of grass that we cannot give the sheep access to as they are also carpeted in acorns. Until such time as the acorns rot down or are eaten by wild animals that can safely ingest them (deer, for example) those fields must remain out of bounds.
I was, thanks to my wonderful wife, completely oblivious to this as I toured around the West Highland Peninsulas on another of David Ward’s photo tours. We stayed in a fabulous house on the shores of Loch Ailort, with all our culinary needs (and much more besides) taken care of by David’s partner, Saskia. The weather could not have been better nor kinder, who would have put money on a week in the Scottish Highlands in October with not a breath of wind? And, as the week progressed, the autumn colour just got more and more intense, becoming an absolute feast for the eyes. Here’s a iPhone picture to be going on with.
9 October 2015
Starting this week with an image probably made during the evening dog walk around our top fields. An everyday activity but not an everyday sunset.
9 October 2016
A year later and clearly much more unsettled weather but I managed to get almost a whole rainbow in the frame which isn’t always easy.
9 October 2019
One of the many highlights of David Ward’s tours to the Picos de Europa National Park in northern Spain is a day spent on a 4x4 safari. The shepherds’ tracks, a series of narrow dirt roads, cross some of the highest mountains and are closed to motorised vehicles except those licensed by the local authority. On this first visit we set off into low cloud and didn’t expect to see much at all. When we reached our first stop, the cloud began to break up and we had some fabulous, tantalising glimpses of the valley below.
9 October 2022
Stage three of the Cleveland Way walk was the most brutal but also the most satisfying. Thirteen and a half miles and over 4,000 feet of ascent as we continued our traverse of the Cleveland Hills from Osmotherly to Clay Bank. It was, I recall, a very windy day but thankfully, it was mostly at our backs pushing us on.
9 October 2024
Meanwhile, back in the Picos, after a morning of rain we left our base looking to photograph some buildings in a relatively unspoiled village that David had stumbled upon during a few days recce before we arrived. When we got there, instead of drying up as the forecast promised, the rain became biblical in its intensity. It was only when we crossed the valley and looked back at where we’d been that we realised just how localised the rain had become.
10 October 2014
I think I’ve mentioned previously that one of the greatest things about visiting Antarctica is the bond that is forged with your fellow travellers. Only those that have been there can understand what you have been through and how it has changed you. This leads to lasting friendship which, in turn, translates into further wonderful experiences. One such was my friend Toni, who invited some of the Antarctic/Arctic crowd to her 50th birthday party weekend in South Wales. We did quad biking, canoeing, photography and partying hard, and it was bloody brilliant. This was the view from our accommodation on the first night.
10 October 2015
A misty sunrise in Farndale.
10 October 2019
Whilst the mountains of the Picos are a major attraction, there is more to it than that, not least the fabulous old buildings in the hillside villages with their wonderful, sun bleached details on doors and windows.
10 October 2024
Our second dawn last year was the most spectacular of my three trips to the Picos, raising what was already a pretty high bar.
11 October 2011
A particularly verdant River Dove in spate following a storm. This was a lot more common 14 years ago than it is now with recent autumns having been relatively calm.
11 October 2015
Another Farndale ‘storm-light’ picture. There is drama to be found at any time of day this deep into the year.
11 October 2019
In one of the spectacular gorges in the Picos de Europa National Park, a river flows through. There is no direct sun but making use of bounced or ‘borrowed’ light from the cliffs above, I have created what I hope is an interesting abstract. This is similar to the picture from last week that I made in Potes but with more organic shapes. Bounced light is one of the best tools available to the photographer, used creatively it can utterly transform a scene.
11 October 2024
This was not a dawn shoot but we had left the house early for the long drive to Bulnes and, a few miles into the journey, David spotted the sunlit mountains poking through the clouds. He is a great improviser and even if we think we know the day’s itinerary, it can change in a heartbeat. It’s one of the great joys of travelling with him.
12 October 2014
Pip and I, together with my friends Anna and Roger (and others) from the Antarctic trip, having a day of landscape photography amongst the rivers and waterfalls of South Wales.
12 October 2017
On an evening dog walk in our intakes (the land between our fields and the moor) with Belle and three month old Sassie. This picture has reminded me that when Sassie ran off and could no longer see either me or Belle, she would just sit down and wait for us to catch up. Although she was a complete handful as a puppy, there were definite signs of the well behaved and sensible dog she has become.
12 October 2019
The final full day of one of the most incredible trips I’ve done with David Ward, certainly on this side of the Atlantic. We drove to the top of a mountain pass and sat watching the clouds scudding across the sky as the wind swirled around us. Although I didn’t realise at the time, in the lower middle of the picture, in the shadows, is the cable car station at Fuente Dé, where we had been the day before the tour officially began.
12 October 2021
We continued to walk potential routes for Pip and Sam’s Moorland Adventure Ride including looking for the best place to cross the North York Moors Railway, a heritage line that snakes its way through the National Park from Whitby to Pickering. This particular location was rejected but we did time our arrival well.
12 October 2023
A remarkable set of circumstances led to me spending almost a month away from home enjoying the company of both family and friends. Earlier in the year, I had promised Pip’s mum that I would join her in Portugal for a few days after I returned from Arran. As it turned out, her usual routine of heading to Portugal in September was delayed due to a medical issue and by the time she was ready to head out, I was having to squeeze in a few days there before travelling to the US to join David Ward on a tour through Montana and Wyoming. My camera gear was all packed for that trip so in Portugal I relied on my phone and my old M series Canon. This is the roofs of the apartments near where we were staying in Praia da Luz.
13 October 2015
The more workshops I did with David Ward and Joe Cornish, the more talented photographers I was introduced to and the more interested I became in abstract and detail imagery. It became not just about making photos of the landscape but exploring what else a small part of it might represent. I began to see pictures in the strangest of places. This one is on the inside of my neighbour’s barn door and I have then inverted it so that, to my eye at least, it resembles mountains in a Japanese painting.
13 October 2019
We asked David if we were going out to shoot the dawn before heading to Bilbao for our flights home. He said that, according to the forecast, it didn’t look to be worth it. This is a phone shot from in front of the house.
13 October 2022
Two years after my sister passed away, Michael, my brother in law, came to stay with us for a few days. He hadn’t been getting out much and was still devastated by her passing. As he struggles a little with his mobility, we took him to Sutton Bank on the edge of the National Park, along a flat path that we had walked a few weeks earlier on the first leg of the Cleveland Way. There is a gliding club adjacent to the path and flights were in full swing.
13 October 2023
This was my first dawn in Portugal. As well as my mother in law, Pip’s brother and his wife were also there and they had offered a few location tips to get me started. I had no idea that this area would have so much to offer the landscape photographer but even without the beautiful sunrise, the rock formations were amazing.
14 October 2020
Following the death of my sister, I continued making pictures around the farm as if she was still waiting to see them. I look back on this time as if through a haze, none of it seems real, Carol’s death, Pip’s breast cancer, Covid, all are lodged in my memory but shrouded in mist. I was compelled to keep making images perhaps because I could think of nothing else that I could do well. I didn’t post any on social media or indeed anywhere but I simply had to keep going. This is another Farndale big sky photo of the sort you have seen many times before.
14 October 2021
More recce-ing for the Moorland Adventure Ride, this time around the village of Levisham and, once again, the North York Moors Railway was in view.
14 October 2022
Misty light through the trees on an everyday dog walk. The sort of day that makes us really appreciate where we live.
14 October 2023
Another Portuguese dawn on the fabulous rocky beach west of the town. I will, at some point in the future, do a longer post about this wonderful week in the sun.
15 October 2012
This is, by now, a familiar view, looking across our top fields from the moor, with the farmhouse and buildings centre right. I was trying out my new tilt/shift lenses that I’d purchased for the impending trip of a lifetime to Antarctica.
15 October 2013
David Ward, who I had met for the first time the previous November, was giving a talk to Penrith Camera Club and I decided I’d like to hear what he had to say. I read his book, ‘Landscape Within’ long before I met him and had discovered somebody who thought about photography in the same terms as me. Penrith is three hours plus to get to from here so it seemed sensible to stay over for a couple of days. It is, after all, the gateway to the Lake District National Park. This was another example of my new found confidence following the Antarctic trip and in this instance it was largely misplaced as I had little idea of where to find the best locations and spent more time driving around than making pictures. This was from the first full day there.
15 October 2015
This is a great example of ‘the best camera is the one you have with you’. Made with an iPhone 6, it was the scene that greeted us as we returned to Farndale from a shopping run and if I remember correctly it graced the cover of the Farndale Community Calendar for the following year.
15 October 2016
Another arrival back into Farndale, from a different direction but again in wonderful conditions. This is why we say, no matter where we’ve been, we are always glad to be home. You simply can’t beat it.
15 October 2018
As recently as the 1980’s, bracken was used as bedding for cattle that were kept in barns through winter to protect the fields. According to some of our older neighbours, it was prized and you would struggle to find any growing anywhere. Eventually, straw replaced it, a much better alternative for both beast and man and now bracken grows freely in our top fields and intakes. There was an attempt to eradicate it about 25 years ago with a chemical spray that was as harmful as the plant itself but nowadays we just put up with it. On the plus side, it makes for fabulous autumn colour.
15 October 2022
A night time visit to Fountains Abbey for a light show along the lines of those we had seen at Rievaulx a few years back. Brother in law, Michael, was still with us and it was good to be getting him out and about and even smiling and laughing occasionally.
15 October 2023
I’m finishing the photos this week in Portugal where I’d decided to head the opposite way along the beach for my third dawn shoot and found more fascinating rock formations and another beautiful sunrise. I was beginning to understand the attraction of this place.
Musical Interlude
Robert Plant, the rock god former lead singer of Led Zeppelin, has a new album out and, in common with the last half a dozen he’s released, it’s falls squarely in the Americana court. At the age of 77 he perhaps no longer has the vocal pyrotechnics of the late 60’s and early 70’s at his disposal, but he knows how to surround himself with excellent musicians and has, over the years, made some canny song choices. Sometime ago he admitted that his own songwriting had dried up and he has released several albums of cover versions, including two with Alison Krauss and one with the all star Band of Joy. His latest, entitled ‘Saving Grace’ includes his version of several traditional blues songs as well as some rather more modern tunes. I do find it interesting that Plant refuses to rest on his laurels albeit through the interpretation of others’ music whilst Jimmy Page seems happy to keep on playing the same old Led Zep riffs, nearly 50 years after they were last relevant.
That’s another week done and I want to thank everyone for their wonderful comments on my last post, it was a hard one to write but I felt cushioned by my lovely Substack friends. I’ve seen a lot of photographers arrive here over the past 18 months or so, seeking something different from their usual social media experience. Within a few weeks, they’ve resorted to daily notes in order to generate ‘likes’ and eventually their output becomes indistinguishable from what they might post on Instagram. Several of them have ceased publishing on here recently and I am so grateful I didn’t head down that same route. For me, Substack is all about engagement, having online conversations with a diverse range of interesting folk who are resisting attempts to make them post a quick note and run. I’ve ‘met’ some absolutely lovely people on here, people exhibiting a level of empathy not only rare on social media but in real life too. I hope that some of them evolve into real life friends in the future but, for now, I’m happy being a photographer who actually wants to talk about what he posts.
In an attempt to make up time, I’m planning on starting my next post immediately, there’ll be a report on the release of our two new tups amongst the ewes, a job that, for me, signifies the start of our farming year, possibly a report on autumn colour in Farndale and a few pictures too. Expect the Lake District, Portugal and the start of the epic adventure in Montana and Wyoming, plus plenty from closer to home.
Until then,
Much love,
Dave
The Fountains Abbey picture reminds me of Andy Marshall’s architectural photography work - are you familiar with him? (Not to say deriviative — but an ability to see and frame things in a way a casual observer might not.) As always I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s post - I tend to come back to it seveal times just to savour the photos.
Friend Dave
There is always something new to learn. Acorns! I never knew that acorns - in excess - could be harmful. I suppose that’s because here in Australia we don’t have oak trees - except in a few parks and botanic gardens. All I knew about acorns when I was growing up is that they are Piglet’s favourite food (except Piglet calls them haycorns) - and I adored the Winnie the Pooh books, (the originals - not the Disney-fied horror of the cartoons and spin offs).
Your opening photo from the Highlands is delectable - as are all the photos from the Picos de Europa. Not an region you hear much about in Australia, but when I was around 20 I read an article in a mountain magazine (possibly, indeed the “Mountain” magazine that was published in the UK through the 70’s and 80’s,, and it had a gorgeous set of photos of the range.
So it’s a place I always wanted to visit. Haven’t made it yet…. but your photos make a great second best. Thanks for including the detail shot of the cottage window. I took a few photos like that myself, in France and Italy, a couple of years ago. Australia just does not have buildings with that kind of character…
10 October 24 of the peak rising out of cloud is mesmerising, as is the monochrome cloud pattern on the mountains, from 12 October 19….
But I’m also glad you keep including the Farndale photos. Collectively, they build an increasingly detailed portrait of a landscape type I saw a little of, long ago, while walking the Pennine Way in 1978. 15/10/16 feels familiar from that experience - because I was rained on a lot!!!
If I saw the photo of 13/10/15 from there back of the neighbour’s door - without your explanation - I would have been certain someone painted an intriguing mountain landscape, and I would have been commenting on the remarkable way the galvanising pattern complements the work.
Gotta go mate. Can’t wait to see more of the Highlands!!
Best Wishes - Dave :)