It’s really hard to know where to start with 2020. Do I talk about the weather ? Do I talk about the virus ? Or do I just stick to the photography because you are already far too farmiliar with and perhaps just a bit fed up with the other topics ? Of course it’s never as simple as that because when summing up one’s own artistic contributions to the year, inevitably, they are inextricably linked with the external forces forging the mental architecture within which the work is created.
The virus has made life for everyone difficult. I ran one teaching day this year, just before it all kicked off. Compare and contrast that to the 50 plus workshops in other recent years. It’s been quite profound. Thankfully our garden came to the rescue, as I am sure it did for many other people. We have spent an incredible amount of time moving our precipitous garden forward and I have enjoyed every minute of it. I wasn’t necessarily constrained with the amount of photography that I did but I was constrained in the subject matter. During the tightest restrictions of the pandemic we kept our walks – and thus I kept my photography – as local as possible, which by comparison with the constraints faced by others actually wasn’t that bad really. I have never taken our location for granted and being obliged to spend three months here was a privilege and it gave me chance to study in some detail the local area in a way that I wouldn’t normally get a chance to, simply because I would normally be elsewhere in the Peak District running teaching days. I summarised some of my favourite shots from the first lockdown period in a previous post in my blog to this one, The Lockdown Files.
The early part of the lockdown coincided with some absolutely stunning weather. Several weeks of unseasonally warm weather – I say unseasonally but an early spring warm and dry is becoming alarmingly seasonal. This is not the first annual review where I have described the same sort of event. This year the prolonged drought put paid to any higher level Hawthorn blossom while the spring orchids were also very short-lived. The Bee Orchids were a general no-show again. As a whole this year’s wild flowers have been excellent and the warm early weather created some really lovely autumn colours later in the year. The frosts took a long time to get here and were for the most part extremely limited in their impact until the snow arrived in mid-december.
Photographically I have once again limited myself solely to what can be achieved with an iPhone. Having experienced some technical teething troubles last year this year has been pretty much trouble free, with the only irritating part of the workflow being that my aging PC no longer speaks to my iPhone so transferring images between the two has been a bit tedious and long-winded. I am contemplating buying an iPad to make editing easier. It is perfectly possible to do it all on the iPhone but an iPad would simplify the workflow and improve editing accuracy.
I have also made great strides in returning to painting and for the first time in 15 years and have actually managed to complete some works to a level that is acceptable to me. I find myself in a much better place with paint than I was when I left off and I have been working with my good friend Diana Syder to move it forward. I am hoping that I can leave the purely representational work to the camera and bring something a bit more abstract into the work with the paintbrush but I’m really quite a way away from that at present.
So what about the photographs ?
January
One of the things that we set out to do this year was walk a lot more. There are an awful lot of places in the Peak District that we have not visited much in recent years so we set out to do much more of what we used to do 20 or so years ago. One of the walks we did in January was the Upper Dove from Hollinsclough, which inevitably took in Chrome Hill and this classicview looking south toward Parkhouse on a beautiful sunny day is my choice for January.
February
We had a small amount of snow in February so I packed off to the ever-rewarding Surprise View for a bimble among the Silver Birches. This pleasing semi-abstracted view of the snow covered rocks against the blue sky was my pick from the set.
March
It was clear from about mid-march that something was going very wrong in the world. Perhaps it was the sense of foreboding that it all came with that caused us to start walking closer to home but a wander through Water-cum-Jolly just below the village produced this shot, which made it into my calendar this year. It has a lovely impressionist feel to it, with the soft mist in the gorge forcing the dark, cold backrgound to recede softly against the warmth of the foreground light.
April
By the time we got into April we were well and truly into lockdown but being here when the world seemed to be going to hell in a handcart was a reassuring balm. An insulation from the suffering that an awful lot of people were enduring. We were good and stayed as local as we could and spent an enormous amount of time in the garden. April’s shot is from the garden and it’s the inside of a tulip. If there is one thing that the iPhone does well it’s macro and the Exolens that I have is outstanding. It is probably one of my favourite shots of the year.
May
Another month where for the most part we felt away from the world’s troubles, although now more people were venturing into our patch. It was hard to not resent the intrusion, especially when we were all supposed to be trying hard to keep the transmission rates down. I took the opportunity to look for compositions in Cressbrook Dale and Ravensdale that I hadn’t made before. One of the pleasing things is the way that in the 20 years we have lived here the bluebells have become stronger and stronger so it was nice to be able to find a shot with bluebells in it when going to other bluebell woods in the Peak District was actually out of the question.
June
The balmy summer evenings of June were spent walking the local area. It’s always great to see the local farmers making silage and it often makes a great photo. It’s the unexpected regular pattern in an otherwise organic scene. Unfortuantely I seem to have mislaid the original frame for June’s shot of silage making. A vicitim of the aforementioned vagaries of getting the iPhone to talk to a PC. It looks OK at 96 dpi and 2000px across, I think but I will seek out the original for some better processing.
July
Despite the fact that we were no longer in lockdown technically in July the tidal wave of visitors to the area kept us local. It was simply unpleasant to venture beyond the locality. The roads were packed and the Peak District honey pots were overwhelmed. Again we felt fortunate to be somewhere like Cressbrook where isolation is not the same hardship being stuck in a flat in the middle of a town is. We can fully imagine how the mental health of people would be suffering so we did our best to just keep out of the way. I’m back in the garden with the macro lens for July’s shot where the Sempervivums this year were magnificent. Their beautiful, delicate flowers and the prehistoric character of the bract stems make them a very rewarding subject.
August
With the visitor onslaught continuing it was with trepidation that I ventured out for a few evenings in August and it was a trip to one of my favourite locations, Millstone Edge quarry that yielded August’s shot. In the end it was just a simple grab shot looking back at the Great Slab as I moved on to the next spot that really stood out in this set. Such is life 🙂 Always follow your instinct on things visual like this. If your brain has responded to it then there’s probably a photograph there. You just need to find it.
September
Like a lot of people we finally got away ourselves for a break in September, returning to a favourite spot on the Argyll coast on Loch Caolisport and returning via friends on Arran. This shot is from the morning we got the ferry back to the mainland from Arran, with the ferry pulling into the pier at Brodick on a lovely morning late in the month.
October
The fantastic weather of the earlier part of the year meant that the autumn colours were truly wonderful. We also started walking further away from Cressbrook again, returning one day to a walk we had done around the Manifold Valley earlier in the year. The shot chosen is from that walk and this view from Castern Wood Nature Reserve down into the Manifold near Throwley has always been one of my favourite Peak District views and one of the best that the Peaks has to offer.
November
We found ourselves back in a sort of lockdown in November although not a huge number of people seemed to pay any attention to it. As is becoming very common now, the autumn colours stretched long into November and being surrounded by woodland I didn’t have to go very far to find them. This shot is from an area called Cramside, which has become a Woodland Trust nature reserve since we have lived here. I love the way this Beech tree seems to explode from the middle of the frame. I must confess I am still really chuffed with this shot.
December
Unlike last year we actually had some December snow this year and we got some lovely walks in. There were plenty of other opportunities with the camera, including multiple return visits to the Manifold Valley but it’s this shot of the bridge below Derwent Dam at Fairholmes that makes my list. The walks around Ladybower are often rewarding like this.
So, a testing year for everyone. Some more than others. I hope sincerely that you have escaped the worst of what the year has thrown at us and that the vaccinations arrive sooner rather than later. Some of my older neighbours here in the village have already received theirs, which is excellent news indeed. If nothing else it shows that at least one thing we have been told in this weird year of on-line existence is actually true. Next year it will be more experimental photography projects and more painting. Thank you for being with me this year and I hope sincerely to continue with the entertainment in 2021.
HNY everyone…
Ravenseye Gallery - The Photography of Chris Gilbert 