I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be running a Photographic Workshop in April ’08. I’ll be joining up with landscape photographer Jason Friend to take a group for a day around one of my favourite locations, the Isle of Purbeck.

Starting in sunny Swanage, we’ll walk along the coast to Corfe Castle, stopping to photograph the wonderful scenery on the way. We’ll return to Swanage from Corfe at the end of the day with a trip on the steam railway, which should be an excellent way to conclude the walk.

Apart from the great views along the way (and the engaging company of course), we’ll visit the “best pub in the world” and I’m sure it will be a really good day out. What could be better than joining up with a group of like-minded people for one of the best walks in England, all of whom want to talk about photography all day long? I’m really looking forward to it.

Photo Workshops

Tags: dorset

The Lake District has been a favourite destination of mine since our first family holiday there when I was nine. Although there are some impressive cliffs on the Isle of Wight there is nothing to compare with the drama of the Lakeland mountains so it was like another world to me on our first visit.

I’ve returned to the Lakes a number of times since then and walked the fells in all weathers. Nobody who has spent any time walking in the Lake District will be unfamiliar with the name Alfred Wainwright. 2007 is actually the centenary of his birth and there are various memorials planned by the Wainwright Society. He was the author of the wonderful Pictorial Guides, seven volumes dedicated to the Lakeland fells, each including painstaking precision and sketches drawn with meticulous attention to detail.

On this trip to the Lakes I was hoping to walk some of the Wainwright Memorial Walk. About 120 miles in length but with a height gain and descent equivalent to climbing up and down Everest from sea level one and a half times. I completed about one half of the total walk and was pretty happy with that. I managed to successfully negotiate Striding Edge for the second time and also tried to climb the perilous Sharp Edge but the weather closed in and the combination of treacherously slippery rocks and low cloud made it difficult to continue. Not wishing to become another statistic on the Keswick Mountain Rescue team’s log of rescues, I retreated back to safer ground from about half-way up the Edge.

Wainwright’s Memorial Walk was first compiled in 1931 as a trip for him and his mates from the Blackburn Borough Treasurer’s Office. He suggested that

“It will be arduous, but the reward will be well worth the work. it will avoid the tourists, the roads, the picnic-spots. It is the claim of this programme that every lake, every valley, every mountain, will be seen if not actually visited.”

I’ve ticked off a few more fells on this trip but with half of the Wainwright Memorial Walk still to complete, I’m sure that I’ll be returning before long.

Tags: cumbria