The year has passed in a complete blur at times. There have been some incredible personal changes for me, amongst lots of freelance writing and projects, and increased rigours of the full-time day job.
All that has meant the energy and additional writing capacity for personal pieces on this blog has been quite limited this year. While all of the above have (obviously, I got married for goodness sakes) been incredibly rewarding and provided their own outlets for my creative drive, I have missed the chances to engage with personal updates and blogs here.
However, something I have managed to give attention to is my photography, a skill I mentioned I wanted to beef up in my reflections blog at the start of the year. In fact, it was only recently I realised that I had put a lot of work into a photography project and published that for a college course and never shared any of that work here! So, this blog is a chance to rectify that.
I have to first make a big thank you to a few people who really encouraged and aided my photography this year, particularly my friends and photographers Andy Milton and Alex Roddie; Andy, for a start, lent me a camera, which I used until I picked up my own in the middle of the year. I should also say thank you to Kendal College’s Dave Willis, who is not only an excellent photographer but was a warm and creatively challenging tutor when I was there.
I have pulled out a few shots that stand out for me this year, alongside a short story of their capture. It should not need saying, but please don’t reuse these without my permission. Now, on!
Landscapes
Contrary to my story above, I have already featured this image in a blog posted back in April, so I would encourage you to read that for the back story. Still, this is one of the shots I am proudest of this year and emblematic of why I found the Kendal College course so useful.
I have always had an affection for camping – I refrain from using ‘love’ because I have a few traumatic memories of being frozen and lying awake under a canvas unable to sleep which have slightly muddied my love of it. Of course, I have still done it, but the Kendal College course encouraged me to revisit sleeping under the stars, because the best light was always to be found at sunrise and sunset.
As is probably obvious from most of my blogs, landscape and the outdoors is my raison d’etre, so naturally my photography project focused on this. Waking up to this jaw-dropping inversion for my first real ‘shoot’ of the project was moving, and I love looking back on this photo and the day which followed its taking.
Following up on that shot above Styhead Tarn is this one of Ben Nevis taken right at the end of my search for shots for my project. Genuinely, this photograph mesmerises me and it filled me with immense pride when Dave Willis gave it such praise.
I was huffing my way up the side of Carn Mor Dearg, completely sapped of energy and not in the mood for taking photos. As the sun set, though, this band of light kept sharpening along Ben Nevis’s north face. By 8.30pm it had turned into this striking beam across Orion’s Face.
Everywhere, the landscape draws the eye, circling from the summit to the coire, to the CIC hut and back up to the light. It was another night spent out on the hill looking for soft sunrise light, but despite my bivouac on Carn Mor Dearg’s summit, this remained the best shot I took of that trip.
In the spirit of honesty, I have done some tweaking in this image to up the highlights and deepen the blacks, with the shadows taking on a purple tone. It was one of the first images I edited to reflect the way the landscape made me feel, rather than what I simply saw through the lens.
Asking the questions
Away from the high mountains, I started experimenting with different styles of shots, taking inspiration from some street photographers and trying to find a storytelling angle away from landscapes. In some ways, big landscape photography is easy (don’t shout at me) – the story is the landscape. I wanted to tell stories that made me laugh or maybe asked more questions than they answered. It was also the point I started wanting to ‘minimise’ my shots, and look for ‘actors’ and ‘supporting actors’ (see here a great video on this concept).
This shot I took on a trip my friend Tom and I made through the Yorkshire Dales. This cow was standing at the gate and did not budge when I went through, so I turned to take Tom’s photo with the cow and caught this one, which just made me chuckle.
This shot is a bit of a blend of both concepts of asking questions and abstraction alongside landscape. The trick, I have found, of good photography is noticing. On any walk with me, my wife will often roll her eyes at my random amusements and “look at that!”s to benign objects and features.
This sea cliff drew my eye. We were on a boat trip from Oban on our ‘mini-moon’ immediately after our wedding. The colours and light immediately caught my attention. It took my a few tries to get the composition right, but I enjoy this meeting of land and sea, and the dark uncertainty within the cracks of the cliff face.
The story of sport
Moving to another realm and right back to the first days of 2023 is this shot from the British Cyclocross Championship held in South Lakes. An old friend of mine, Cameron Mason, put on a dominating performance to be crowned British champion – an amazing achievement to have witnessed.
As he crossed the line, I dived in with the press photographers and caught this shot of Cameron, overcome with emotions, standing opposite his mechanic and dad who is full of pride. It was a real ‘photojournalist’ attitude on my front, and I guess a spot of luck. There are a few things I would change about the ‘quality’ of the image, but the story here is one of achievement and pride, and it was a true joy to have captured it. A few of these shots even went into Cameron’s local paper!
Sticking on the cycling theme, I was once again a reporter at this year’s Transcontinental Race, working with the rest of the media team to cover one of the toughest bikepacking races on the calendar. I am, of course, not the official photographer, so I was taking shots purely for myself.
There are a lot of shots I could use (and will show more below) to symbolise the TCR, but this is one of them. Will Voudsen is here riding the final part of the San Bernardino Pass, one of dozens of enormous climbs these riders take on as they traverse Europe.
What is extraordinary about the TCR is the blending of these nomadic riders with their environments, and yet their separation from it. On one level, they are at its mercy: while we – even the media team – put our heads on our pillows at night or sit in air conditioned cars, the riders are constantly in these landscapes, caressing every climbs and stretching out along every plane, moving with the rhythms of its whims. And yet, nature is impervious to their endeavour; it continues to evolve, battering them with stinging rain or bronzing their skin with incessant sun.
I ran a good way up the San Bernardino Pass with Will, interviewing him about his race. As I ran, we were in clear skies but, as soon as he headed down the other side into Switzerland, skies darkened and the rain came, showing just how unpredictable this race can be.
A small additional note on the above grid: The shot of the mountain with the dam is my attempt to play with reflections and unusual angles. This shot was taken on the Maloja Pass in Switzerland, and the reflection is from the roof of our rental car. Again, it made me laugh.
Homeward
The Transcontinental Race organisers, Lost Dot, are increasingly focusing on reducing their emissions from travel of the team and participants. Because of that, I travelled home overland from Thessaloniki, Greece, to the Lake District.
On the way, my route saw me stop overnight in Milan, a place I have wanted to visit for years and see the famous Duomo. The Duomo is a classic photographers target, and the trick is to find a unique angle to shoot it from while hoards of people and pigeons parade in front of its shimmering facade.
As I sat down to pizza at a restaurant on the square, having struggled to get a good shot, a girl sat down and began to sing and play the piano just opposite me. After watching her for a while, I moved round to take a shot, trying to contextualise the Duomo in its modern setting. I love the outcome, having deepened the blacks and shadows to remove the clutter in the foreground of piano and tourists, making this high-contrast shot of the Duomo at sunset. I have a few more from the trip home below, including some of riders awaiting the ferry from Igoumenitsa to Italy.
And, finally, while winter can often be a colourless and dreary time, these colourful cattle raised a smile to my lips when I spied them on a recent trip to the Scottish Borders. It isn’t by any means the most mo(o)ving of photographs, but I seem to have a soft spot for cows going about their business.
I have had such a fun time playing with a proper digital camera this year and think next year I will be using it even more with some upcoming trips I have planned. More on those soon! For now, keep noticing – and keep having fun.
Ross Runs Wild 