Category Archives: Uncategorized

Wilderness

“Wilderness”

Superheadz / Kodak film

We live on the doorstep of the Pennines, it’s one of the few wild places remaining on this little island. Years ago I read Thoreau’s ‘Walden’, it’s an amazing book that meditates on the importance of solitude and time spent with nature, because there is no simpler way to understand that we are not the centre of the Universe, and that understanding is the tonic for the soul, to which he alludes. Thoreau said:

“We need the tonic of wildness… At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

Cast Away

“Cast Away”

Superheadz / Kodak film

“The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its source.”

– Aiden Wilson Tozer

The Sea, the Shore

“The Sea, the Shore”

Superheadz / Kodak film

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”
― Hunter S. Thompson

The River Crossing

“The River Crossing”

Superheadz / Kodak film

On summer days we all enjoy larking about by the River. Those days seem to go on forever. I recently finished reading a book and this quote stayed with me:

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Sentinel

“Sentinel”

Superheadz / Kodak film

It seems to me that to truly be a sentinel, you must be made of stone.

“You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You’ll care only about the darkness and you’ll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you’re some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay. It will get so bad you’ll be afraid to look away, you’ll be afraid to sleep.

Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you’ll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You’ll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse you’ll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you’ve got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.”

― Mark Z. Danielewski

The Shore

“The Shore”

Superheadz / Kodak Film

I am reading Hemingway, which I never thought I’d enjoy so much. Here’s a quote that seems to me to be true. The trick is to stop complaining, but very few people know what that means:

“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life.”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

The Ocean

“The Ocean”

Superheadz Black Devil / Kodak film

“The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean-
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.”

Robert Frost

Winter Birds

“Winter Birds”

Zorki 4 / Fuji film

A classic Norfolk skyline, far out in the fens. In this house we have discovered a love of Rilke, and this brings him to mind:

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”

Cold Day at Cow Green

“Cold Day at Cow Green”

Yashica 124G / FUJI RVP100F

This is one of the most amazing places in the UK in my experience. There is a profound silence that only three miles away seems impossible with the roar of the falls at Cauldron Snout. We camped out here a few years back while walking the Pennine Way and it’s on the edge of true wilderness. It’s an amazing view to wake up to.

Hazy Days

“Hazy Days”

Yashica 124G / Kodak

We’ve had plenty of hazy days here on Weardale. Thankfully the Sun is starting to shine bright and clear at last.