2022 in review

Well, that’s the end of 2022, then, although the year-end is not really bringing the curtain down on certain things, is it ? We’ve spoken to a lot of people this year who have found it hard to get into the festive spirit. There’s just a bit too much rubbish going on to really feel like we’re in control.

We’ve had plenty of distractions here in our beautiful corner of the Peak District as well. If you haven’t seen www.savecressbrookdale.com yet then have a mooch. The matter has occupied us for the entire second half of the year. The coming year is a bit of an unknown but it’s not something that is going to be resolved anytime soon and is too important to ignore. The distraction means that I haven’t done any painting this year, sadly, and I also lost a very dear friend who was both a lovely human being and a fantastic artist. I can only hope that I can use the disturbance of her loss as a trigger to get me into the studio, if only because I know it’s what she would have wanted me to do.

It’s been an interesting year with the camera, though. In June I sold some old SLR equipment and invested in an iPhone 13 Pro, which on the whole is a remarkable device. The only disappointment was the 77mm camera, which only has a 6mp sensor behind it. It’s my fault for not doing my research properly. I should have bought an iPhone 12 Pro Max, whose 68mm camera has a 12mp sensor. It was a mistake to assume that the latest device would prove to be the best piece of kit. It means that I have spent the year using two iPhones as my old but still highly capable 8 Plus has a 12mp sensor behind the 58mm camera. I have some plans for new techniques that I’ll share if and when they produce useful results.

On the with this year’s choice of images ……

January

We’ve tried very hard to get back into our pre-covid level of walking this year and we had a lovely outing in January from Peak Forest that took in a part of the Great Ridge. I had wanted to use this particular prospect of Mam Tor from Lord’s Seat to test out a new lens. Sadly the lens – like a lot of lenses, to be fair – turned out be junk so this image taken with the 58mm camera on the 8 Plus was preferred.

As a general rule you will always find that the native cameras provide a better quality shot without additional lens converters. There are exceptions and they’re worth doing the research for as they provide options on focal lngths and thus angular seperation.

February

A lovely, sunny wander around the Yorkshire Sculpture Park yielded this shot, which is of a sculpture called Seated Figure by Sean Henry ( … https://ysp.org.uk/art-outdoors/seated-figure ). I’m always wary of taking photographs of other people’s art, including architecture. Putting Jane in the shot creates an alternate context to the original vision.

If you’ve never been to YSP then I urge you to go and have a look. Such a lovely place ( …with an excellent cafe ). We’ll be back again next to see the new exhibitions.

March

Another one from one of our regular walks. This time it was a lovely day’s walk around Combs in the west of the Peak District. We started just behind the White Hall Centre and followed the western edge of Combs moss all the way to the village of Combs and then back along Ladder Hill and Wythen Lache. This shot is taken from the edge of Combs Moss – a lovely, quiet but spectacular walk.

April

Of course April means chasing bluebells, although every year is different. This shot is from one of the locations that I look at every year over in Coumbs Wood, which is near Lea. It often gets overlooked because the nearby Bow Wood is much better known for its bluebells but – don’t tell everyone – Coumbs is the much, much better location.

May

We had a lovely few days away in the Yorkshire Dales in May, not too far away from Pen-Y-Ghent. While some parts of the Dales are very reminiscent of parts of the Peak District there are many others that feel very other-worldly and the tops of the high moors around the Three Peaks, between Wharfdale and Horton, definitely has that unique Dales feel to it. It was while out scouting for the location used by David Bellamy (artist, not botanist) when he painted Dale Head Farm with Pen-y-Ghent behind it that I found this composition.

June

Midsummer on Lunch lane.

As I mentioned earlier, I traded in some redundant SLR equipment and invested in an iPhone 13 Pro, the photographic capabilities of which are quite extraordinary. One of the things about it that I really wasn’t sure about beforehand was the ultra-wide, 16mm camera. It’s not a focal length that I have ever worked with before so I really didn’t know much about it but I have to say that I am absolutely sold on it. Photographers use focal length to manage something called the Figure:Ground Ratio. What 16mm does is create compositional figures that are close to the camera in a way that the mind cannot imagine. We can usually visualise longer focal lengths because they’re just crops of the world that we see around us. Not so with focal lengths that are wider than what the eye sees. The 16mm camera is a genuinely useful focal length to work with.

July

Midsummer is always a good time to explore Ramshaw Rocks. The late sun lights it in a lovely oblique way that is almost 90 degrees to the line of the ridge. There are many interesting shots.

August

A trip up onto Hathersage Moor and shot of Higger Tor from Carl Wark. It had been quite wet for a few days and – of course – we had an absolute scorcher of a week shortly before. I was a little bit worried that everything had got a bit too scorched at a critical time for the heather but the few days of damp had helped everything to recover well. As always I had hoped in vain to get the place to myself but I was still surprised to find 7 or 8 people already there with cameras.

September

Another lovely trip up to the Galloway coast, which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite places. The landscape between Creetown and Southerness is stunning. This is a shot of Ardwall Island, which is near Knockbrex. Again, the 16mm ultra-wide creating a scene that is very difficult to envision while standing looking at it through 26mm eyes..

October

The autumn colours came in very slowly this year, with a lot of soft growth having been already killed-off by the excessive temperatures earlier in the year. It was particularly tricky finding the more colourful bracken as a lot of it quickly turned brown as the year cooled. This lovely patch was in Hay Dale, just around the corner from home.

November

It’s always pleasing to go to a place that is very farmiliar and create a shot that you’ve never done before. This bridge is not far from the Visitor Centre at Fairholmes in the Upper Derwent. It’s a place that I know very well and use regularly in workshops simply because there are so many options in such a compact area. I have been looking at this little stretch of water for a couple of years and finally found the time to fight a way through the undergrowth to look at it in a bit more detail. I’m very glad I did.

December

Although everyone got a cold snap in December we didn’t really get that much in the way of snow around here at all. Just a few flurries, which quickly went away in the valley bottoms and only really hung around for any time on the tops of the moors. In fact we haven’t had any significant snow here since last November. I was very glad that it did hang around long enough for me to get a lovely set of shots from around Hathersage Moor, above Surprise View. It’s hard to pick one but this one taken near Over Owler Tor is reminiscent of a forzen exo planet somewhere near the galactic core, so that’ll do for me!

So there we are. Just a few shots from many hundreds. It’s always difficult to choose but fun nonetheless. Here’s hoping for some serious improvements all ’round in the new year so stay warm and safe and look after each other. And take more photographs.