12 Selections from 2021
Your esteemed editor can be credited (or blamed!) for this idea, which is to offer my selection of pictures, all made this year (or within the last twelve months). A sort of alternative On Landscape Calendar perhaps? Not necessarily my best pictures of the year, they are nevertheless ones that I am fond of, or intrigued by…and which haven’t yet appeared in On Landscape! The captions aim to provide a little background to their origins, and why I chose them.
It would be disingenuous to deny that travel has played a huge role in my life and – in spite of misgivings about my carbon footprint – was until March last year integral to how I made a living. A feature of last year and this one has been the complete absence of overseas travel, and the much reduced amount of travel within the UK as well.
The Delta variant wave of the pandemic brought the January lockdown, and every trip/tour/voyage being cancelled or postponed for the second year in a row. Workshops in the UK made a soft return at the end of June, but I had reduced my commitments and expectations, and in any case had a couple of major projects to work on for next year, locally.
In spite of, or perhaps because of these limitations I have been able to concentrate completely on the UK, and mainly just my home patch. It has been a great creative opportunity. With just two pictures from Scotland, one from Wales and one from Northumberland, the majority of this collection was made within an hour of home (and most much less than that).
Water Gardens in Snow
Since I am lucky enough to have Fountains Abbey as a commissioned subject currently, there are a number of images taken there this last twelve months that could have been chosen.