LOST IN EDEN

I was in Cornwall earlier this month, and I finally got round to visiting the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The Eden Project is vastly overrated and grossly overpriced. There is something in its noisy mix of crass didacticism and rampant commercialism that renders it soulless and makes my heart sink. The Lost Gardens were, however, an unexpected find. I normally think of visiting gardens as barely a step above visiting country houses; and I’d rather watch Jeremy Kyle than spend a day at Chatsworth. And, yet, there was something unexpectedly magical about Heligan. I don’t buy all the guff about wanting to turn it back into something ‘authentic’. Nevertheless, even on a wet and windy day, when it was often sheeting with rain, the Gardens were wonderfully ethereal, a work as much of the imagination as of compost and sweat. And so, inevitably, some photos.

LUST AND MEMORY

I have, after many years of lusting after one, finally got myself a Nikon D7000. My battered old D40 is being retired. (Translated for those who are not photo geeks, it means that I have swapped a goodish camera for a greatish one.) I have not had a chance yet properly to use the D7000. But I have managed to trawl through my old D40 catalogues, a treasurehouse of memories, and picked out some of my favourite photos.

ON THE ROAD TO MORDOR

The Cuillin on Skye, moody and broody and brilliantly menacing. We had driven there listening all the while to an audiobook of The Lord of the Rings. We might as well have been entering Mordor. The photos are best seen on my photoblog another lonely pixel.

THE COLOUR OF ICE

Photos taken while Britain was freezing last weekend. They were, as so often, taken in and around Blythe Hill Fields in south London, which I have also photographed in fog and at sunset. Check out also my photoblog, another lonely pixel, from which some of these photos come.

TO CATCH A SHAFT OF LIGHT

For no reason other than that I have never captured a rainbow quite so dramatically before. And on a wet, freezing February day such as this a little sense of drama and wonder and awe cannot go amiss.

DECEMBER MOON

A full moon, a clear sky, a night with a camera. These photos were taken earlier this month, as ever on Blythe Hill Fields in South London. There are earlier series on Blythe Hill all fogged up and falling into darkness. Check out also my photoblog another lonely pixel, from which some of these photos come.

A MOODY, BROODY, FOGGY DAY IN (SOUTH) LONDON TOWN

A series of photos taken last week on Blythe Hill Fields in south London on a day in which rolling fog mixed with blue skies and occasional bright sunshine to make for a sense of ethereal otherworldness. The photos are roughly in chronological order, from midmorning to late afternoon:

NOT SO AUTUMNAL COLOURS

In a blooming London garden:

AS ONCE IT WAS

Before 9/11: photos of Lower Manhattan & the Twin Towers taken in 1998. From my photoblog another lonely pixel: