Today – 19th August 2025 – is World Photography Day, a celebration of photography – its art, craft and science.
At the beginning of the day I thought I would take the opportunity to go out and take some photographs with my camera. It’s certain I used to do quite regularly but I fell out of the habit a long time ago.
There’s a park nearby which I thought I would visit. Initially I wasn’t sure what I was going to photograph. Am I a street photographer today? Eventually, though, I wandered up to a quiet corner of the park where there is a small pond.
Drifting around its edges were these purple tipped reeds spraying out almost as if they were fireworks. For a while I lost myself in the subject, trying different ideas to capture how I felt about them. Changing focus, composition and waiting for them to stop trembling in the slight breeze. Eventually I had created the image I liked and I surfaced.
Before I headed home though I came upon the teasels and dived straight back in. Once more I was in a small bubble which consisted of nothing but myself, my camera and the thistles. I looked at them from different viewpoints through the lens and directly. I carefully chose one particular thistle – this one – because it was the right height for me to look down and, of all of them, this was the one with the most pronounced strands swirling around its head. Then I lifted the camera, taking a few photographs, changing the composition and focus.
Once I had finished it was like the moment rising from the sea – underneath everything is muffled and the world is confined to the small space I can see ahead of me; all I do is concentrate on holding my breath and pushing forward for as long as I can. Then I break the surface and the world crashes in around me. The dog walkers, the people heading to work. It was time for me to head home and start work for the day.
The sky and the clouds can play an important part in all sorts of photographs (even ones in which they might not appear!). They can add drama to a landscape or architectural photograph, they can provide you with different types of lighting, and they can help you emphasise your subject. Even on the dullest day, clouds can have a part to play in your photography.
However clouds can make great photographs in themselves.
This is the first part of a two part posting. In this post we are going to celebrate clouds, looking at the works of different photographers to seek inspiration. We will also take a look at the different sorts of clouds, identifying the ones which are the most photogenic. What types of clouds are there, and what particular features do they have which could be useful to you as a photographer?
In part two we will look at how to photograph clouds including in tricky situations such as shooting into the sun or when the sky is brighter than the foreground. We will also look at what part an overcast sky can play in your photography – more than you might think. And what about those days when there are no clouds – clear blue skies are great for beach holidays but sometimes they might not work well if you want to create dramatic photographs, or could they? Find out more in part two – coming soon!
For the moment, let’s celebrate clouds.
In celebration of the cloudscape
I have always sought out places with dramatic skies whether that is over the sea or land; two of my favourite places are anywhere on the coast where the sky hangs large overheard or the Fenlands in Cambridgeshire where the clouds offer an ever-changing drama.
Sometimes the clouds hang high above a distant landscape, or perhaps they are much lower, rolling in and filled with the threat of rain; or they might hang so low they turn into mist or fog. Or they might be touched by the colour of the morning or evening light; perhaps they are just wisps drifting overhead (maybe even the trails of aeroplanes).
Whatever they are I always try to look upwards and capture them in my photographs.
Clouds have inspired other photographers as well.
“The sky is the key to the landscape”
Leonard Misonne (1870-1943)
Misonne was a Belgian Photographer working in the pictorialist style in the early years of the 20th century. He photographed landscapes and street scenes in which the sky and clouds played an important role. His interest was in the light from the sky as much as the clouds themselves and how it illuminated his subject so he would photograph in all kinds of weather.
Léonard Misonne, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Pictorialism was a popular style of photography, seeking inspiration from painting and many of its images have a painterly feel. Misonne recognised the importance of clouds in landscape photography and, in my view, took some of the best photographs that included clouds.
“The clouds are the cool voices of the sky and winds.”
Ansel Adams (1902-1984)
Ansel Adams was a landscape photographer famous for his images of the Sierra Nevada in California. If you are interested in landscape photography Adams will need no introduction. His carefully crafted photographs, from composition, setting the exposure (he developed the Zone system for ensuring optimum exposure for his images), and printing are renowned. Clouds played an important part in many of his photographs:
Ansel Adams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A major part of his photographic process was simply to wait until the clouds were in the right position for lighting and composition to create the perfect photograph.
“In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality”
Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946)
Alfred Stieglitz took cloud photography to a different level – he excluded everything but the clouds! Stieglitz was a photographer working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when photography was still in its infancy. He became a champion of the new artform – and he saw it as an artform, to be viewed in the same way as painting and sculpture. In the 1920s he challenged himself to photograph something that had no obvious relationship to anything else – a person or a building, for example – he wanted the images to be abstraction, separated from reality.
Alfred Stieglitz, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
He used the term, “Equivalents” suggesting that the photographs more purely expressed his ideas and inner feelings. This was part of a movement in the art world, espoused by the artist, Kandinsky, that colours and shape can reflect the inner “vibrations of the soul”. So Stieglitz turned his camera to the sky and photographed the clouds, trying to avoid anything in the foreground that might literally “ground” his image, focussing solely on the shapes and lights of the cloudscape.
Cloud types
My go to book for this subject!
If you stare up at the sky for long enough photographing the clouds you’ll begin to notice that they come in different shapes and sizes. You don’t really need to know about the specific details of different types of clouds to take great photographs but it can make your expeditions out photographing cloudscapes more interesting. IANAM (I am not a meteorologist) -all the information has come from a splendid book called The Cloudspotter’s Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, any errors, though, are my own.
There are ten common cloud types or genera classified by height. Each cloud is broken down into species and then into varieties (the characteristics of the cloud’s appearance). And all of this is in Latin! For example, “Cirrocumulus stratiformis undulatus”.
This is the cloud type, Cirrocumulus; species, stratiformis and variety, undulatus. You might know it as the mackerel sky!
I have listed some of the most common cloud types, broken down by height and I have given each of them a (very subjective) star rating depending upon how photogenic the type of cloud is. Note that within a cloud type there might be certain species or varieties that are more photogenic.
LOW CLOUDS
Typically starting around 2000 feet up (600 metres)
Some of the most photogenic examples of low cloud are when they go really low to form mist or fog
Cumulus – fluffy white clouds – characteristic of a summer’s day. Very photogenic. Great for photographing lying on your back in a field of wild flowers ****
Cumulonimbus – storm clouds rise very high into the sky and can be anvil shaped. Very photogenic. Best photographed at a distance for full effect (and to keep out of the rain or hail) *****
Stratus – low cloud often filling the sky and blocking out the sun or moon, can be featureless. There are species and varieties which can be photogenic for example the fractus species, a ragged variety which can look crumpled paper in the sky or the translucidus variety which allows the sun or moon to show through. This can be useful for other types of photography for example natural light portraiture. Stratus clouds can be very photogenic when they are close to the ground becoming mist or fog. ***
Stratocumulus – similar to Cumulus but bigger and sometimes clumped together. Can be gaps between the clouds which could let the sun through. Very photogenic and great for landscape photographs – wait for the sunlight to break through on your subject and see what it does to your photograph. One variety, radiatus in which the clouds appear to be converging on the horizon, can be great to aid focus on your subject or mirror objects on the ground below such as a river valley or a road leading into the distance. *****
MEDIUM HEIGHT CLOUDS
Starting from around 6,500 feet (1800 metres)
Clouds can add texture to the sky especially when backlit as in this case
Altocumulus – Higher level clouds or patches of clouds – the most common type is the stratiformis which covers a large area. Can look like a batch of bread rolls on a tray. Similar in appearance to the lower stratocumulus and higher cirrocumulous (differs in size and lighting)
Altostratus – grey cloud cover with limited or no features, uniform in appearance. Have a couple of varieties which include some features – the undulatus (when the cloud cover undulates) and the radiatus (when the undulations appear to run off to the horizon). Like the lower stratus has a translucidus variety through which the sun or moon can be see, tends to look more diffuse. Can look extremely pretty at sunrise or sunset (before the sun disappears behind the cloud). Like the lower stratus it can be useful for outdoor portraiture or architectural photography ***
Nimbostratus – nimbus is the Latin for rain and that’s all you need to know. Low dense cloud that hangs around raining on you. If you thought the stratus cloud was dull and boring, well wait until you see this one. Don’t even bother to go out. Dull and rain. *
HIGH CLOUDS
Starting from 16,000 feet (4,800 metres)
Wispy high cloud can add drama and emphasise your subject
Cirrus – the highest of the clouds we are looking at. It comes in a long wispy form. Its name is from the Latin for a lock of hair. Can sometimes seem to being blown in different directions. It’s ethereal nature can look good strong high contrast black and white photographs with buildings rising into the sky below them. ****
Cirrocumulus – high scatterings of cloudlets. This is the one that produces the mackerel sky (although a similar effect can be seen in the Altocumulus) which can add texture to the sky and could complement a landscape, cityscape or, indeed, seascape (as mackerel sky was a termed coined by fishermen who recognised it a signal to turn for home before the weather deteriorated) ****
Cirrostratus – a layer of very faint cloud at great height. Can cover great expanses but sometimes barely visible. Maybe turns the blue sky a paler shade. The sun or moon can be visible through the cloud and tend to cast shadows (one way to distinguish this from the lower altostratus). Can create numerous light effects as a result of the sunlight shining through the different shaped ice crystals that make up the clouds. These can include halos, upturned rainbows and even what appear to be duplicate suns. *****
I hope this has been a useful overview of the different types of clouds and will give you some inspiration to get out there and photograph them in all their glory. If you do I would love to see the results. Post them on Instagram and tag me @stephentaylorphotography so I can see them.
Don’t forget to look out for my next post on this subject showing you how to photograph different cloud conditions, especially the tricky ones and the ones which at first glance might be less interesting.
This is one of a series of posts aimed at encouraging those of you who have fallen out of love with photography to give it a try again. In this post we’ll take a look at a major cause of disenchantment with photography – disappointment with your results, and how to overcome them.
I am just about to send some rolls of film off to be developed. (I occasionally use an old film camera to take photographs) At the moment I am in a state of anticipation – every single photograph is either the best I have ever taken or the worst but I will not know until I see the prints (or the scans). This sense of anticipation is not confined to film photography, though. Even with a digital camera you won’t really know how your images came out until you see them on a larger screen.
One of the things that can put an amateur photographer off their stride is getting back from a day’s photographing and looking at the images on the computer screen. Suddenly they might not look as good as they seemed from the back of the camera.
Perhaps there is a little bit of camera shake; perhaps the subject of the photograph isn’t quite in focus; perhaps the subject is lost in the shadows or blown out in the highlights; perhaps something is intruding into the image; or perhaps the composition isn’t quite as good as it could be. Maybe they just feel a little “meh”.
Bouncing back
How do we bounce back from that sense of disappointment to start taking photographs again? Here are a few ideas I have tried when I have discovered that my results aren’t necessarily what I hoped they would be.
Take the best photographs you can
First of all, when you go out photographing try to be as good a photographer as you can. Know your equipment – familarise yourself with all the settings, especially if working in challenging lighting conditions. Take your time to make your image, checking the focus, exposure and composition carefully.
I always find it useful to check the edges of my viewfinder before I take the picture. Is there something creeping into the image that might be distracting? Can I remove it in some way?
Plan the photographs you would like to take
Secondly, plan. What are the photographs you would like to take and therefore where do you need to be and what needs to happen for you to get them? Perhaps there is a certain viewpoint you need to have of the subject? Perhaps the subject is a fast moving object which needs to be in a certain location? Research the subject in advance and plan the photographs you intend to take.
Learn from your mistakes
If you do make mistakes, make them good mistakes and try to learn from them. You might be able to go back and retake the image once you have recognised what you need to do to make it better. Or, if that is not possible, then you could apply what you learnt to other photographs.
Don’t treat the photo out of the camera as the finished product.
So we have carefully taken our photographs, researching the subject in advance and setting up each image to get the best shot we can. Even then we might still feel a little underwhelmed when get home and see the pictures properly for the first time.
One thing to bear in mind, if you are shooting in RAW image files you might find that the photographs look flatter than they did when you previewed them in your camera. This is because your camera will have shown you a jpeg version can look brighter. The RAW file image contains a lot of unprocessed data some of which you will not need in your finished images. As a result they can tend to look a little disappointing when you first view them.
Don’t treat the RAW image file as the finished product. Instead, consider it as the starting point for creating the image you really want it to be and which captures the feelings you experienced when you were making the photograph.
Give yourself time to revisit your photographs
If you still feel uninspired by the photographs you have taken put a bit of time between viewing your photographs. Look at them first and then set them aside, coming back to them at a later date. The chances are you will now discover something in them that you did not see on the first look and the photographs might actually be better than you first thought.
It maybe that your original images did not meet your expectations of your trip. You wanted to get that spectacular sunset or that street photograph caught at the perfect moment. Those images didn’t quite work but you may have taken some other photographs that did work.
Don’t write them all off.
Enjoy taking photographs!
Perhaps the best way to avoid disappointment is to go out with no expectations at all, simply taking your camera for a walk and enjoying the stroll. Any photographs you take are a bonus! Someone said to me once that they actually enjoyed the process of taking the photographs – observing their surroundings, composing the image and taking it – more than they did actually looking at the photographs later on.
And when you are back home looking at the photographs and maybe feeling underwhelmed, give yourself time to remember that experience of actually taking the photographs – where you were, what you were doing.
Simply embrace your photography!
If you have ever felt a little disappointed by the results of your work I hope these ideas are useful and will help you bounce back to take more photographs.
In the meantime my film is in the box and on its way to be developed. I will report back on my response to the photographs when I receive them!
Several years ago when I was exploring the often overlooked landmarks of London I visited the Hardy Tree in the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church.
The tree, an ash tree, was so named because of its association with the author, Thomas Hardy. Before he became famous for his novels and poetry on rural life he had been a trainee architect living in London for a while. One of the projects he worked on was to oversee the removal of human remains from the churchyard, parts of which would be lost to the railway line into St Pancras that was just being built at that time (the 1860s).
Hardy had the idea to pile up many of the gravestones that had to be removed around a single tree. Over the years the tree grew spreading out over the stones that huddled around its base. These were possibly the only reminders now of the people that had been marked by these gravestones.
Over 150 years later the tree began to show its age. In 2014 it was discovered that it had contracted a parasitic disease; a fence was put around it to protect visitors. Then in December 2022 the tree finally fell.
In June 2025 I revisited the site to see what remained …
The gravestones stand huddled around where the tree once stoodAt the moment some of the stones are disappearing under the bramblesThe remains of the tree lie in the graveyard nearbyGrooves in the base of the tree show where it had grown against the gravestones. In one case part of a stone remains like a broken tooth.
There are a few constants in my life – one of them is riding the bicycle. Another one is photography. Very often the two are combined. I will head out cycling somewhere (usually on my own – this is not really a social activity, especially when I am taking photographs) with the camera strapped over my back. Sometimes it’s where I’ve been before or sometimes its somewhere new.
If you check the route I took on Strava or Komoot you’ll see that there are lots of places where I slow down, pause. Sometimes I might even turn around and head back the way I came. There may be momentary diversions. My cycle rides are basically meanders. This is the story of one such meander.
It took place on a Sunday towards the end of May. I had taken the train out to Hitchen in Hertfordshire, north of London, to be closer to the countryside. My plan was to ride further north before turning about and heading back towards Stevenage and then the train home. Along the way I would explore the country lanes of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.
It was the perfect day for cycling and photography. There was a breeze to blow me along (except when I turned in the wrong direction) and to push the clouds across the sky. The lighting would change minute by minute – once glorious sunshine and then dark clouds threatening (and briefly delivering) rain.
Slow down
Rhododendrons growing in a pine forest somewhere in Bedfordshire.
As I cycle along if I come upon something I will slow down. Whilst keeping an eye on the road, I’ll note my surroundings. Do they have potential for a photograph? Sometimes I will cycle on a little bit further before I decide. Then I turn around and head back down the road to where I think the best photograph is.
On one part of today’s ride I cycled under an old railway bridge. Beyond it I found myself on a road running through some pine forests. The sunlight was breaking through the trees lighting the undergrowth carpeted with ferns and dotted with brightly coloured rhododendrons. I cycled along a little bit more, admiring the view before stopping and turning around to make this particular photograph.
Adding miles
A water tower stands against the sky and the sun
Occasionally I may even head off in a different direction to make a photograph, adding extra miles to the ride. I’ll notice and feel motivated enough to photograph it to make the diversion.
A little later on my ride I noticed a water tower rising on the horizon. As I cycled along I watched it, observing how it sat in the landscape, beneath the sky. My ride would not pass in front of the tower so it would mean a short diversion to photograph it. It would add a couple of miles to my route and a small climb. I changed my plans and headed up the road towards it.
Here is one the photographs – a dramatic view looking up at it with the sunlight breaking through from the top left.
Stopping
Then there are the occasions when I seem to stop for ages. These are usually a place I think might be interesting to observe in more detail. Sometimes I might have planned beforehand. At other times, though, I will come upon them in the moment. I will decide there and then to pause, to photograph; to simply spend time wherever I have chosen to be.
On these occasions I am aided by the use of a physical paper map. They show me a bigger picture and not just the route I am taking. On this ride whilst checking the map I noticed a church stood alone up a track away from the road.
The church on the map
So I just had to go look for it…
And the church on the ground
And then, as I often do, I wandered around the church and the churchyard, noticing little details. Here an old keyhole in the door to the bell tower, and there some wonderful lettering on a grave.
When I head out cycling with the camera I become lost in the space I ride through (always keeping an eye on the traffic!). It is a spontaneous and almost organic action. When I can I pause to notice and create the images you see here (and on many of the other pages in my website). The photographs are of a fleeting moment (I might not visit this place again) but I hope I capture a sense of what I saw and how I felt when I stood there on the roadside.
Recently I was asked to run a short workshop on photographing flowers so I thought I would share some of my thoughts here.
Photographing flowers goes right back to the beginning of photography. In the 1830s William Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of one of the earliest photographic processes, tested his ideas on flowers and other objects. Even earlier (in the 18th century) Thomas Wedgwood, the son of the potter, had attempted to capture the silhouette of flowers on light sensitive paper.
Since then numerous photographers have been fascinated by the colours, shapes and textures of different flowers and other plants. A few years ago Dulwich Picture Gallery in South London held an exhibition on this very subject.
Photographing flowers is a great way to hone your visual and photographic skills. They are easily accessible – they could be in your garden or in a pot, or they could be wild flowers. They could also be cut flowers in a vase. And they don’t even need to be flowers. They could be leaves and any other types of plant. Because they are unlikely to move you have plenty of time to observe your subject in all its detail and to identify what it is you want to photograph.
What follows are a few of my ideas on photographing flowers from choosing your subject, considering the background and getting inventive through to what to bring with you to take succesful flower photographs.
Choosing your subject
This flower was outside my front door – a single wild rose growing amongst the darker leaves, just calling out to me to be photographed.
When choosing what to photograph, whether it’s flowers or anything else, ask yourself a question: “What made you stop?“
What has drawn you to this flower or group of flowers?
To help you answer that question, give yourself time to enjoy it and consider it carefully. Look at it from above, below and behind, and come in as close you can.
Some of the fascinating parts of a flower aren’t its petals. Here’s a sunflower from behind emphasising its stalk.
Now, pull back and notice what else is around the flower. Do the surroundings enhance or distract from the subject? There may be objects such as a wall or other plants that give your subject context and help it stand out. Or it could be something that makes the photograph look cluttered and takes your attention away from the subject.
The background can make or break the image so I have added a section below on controlling it.
This wild flower was growing in a fenced off part of a local park. I included some of that fencing to add context and strengthen the composition
The last thing to consider when choosing your subject is does it have to be about the flowers? It might be the leaves or the stalk or the thorns that make a great photograph in themselves. Helpful when the flowers might not be at their best.
The background
These flowers were growing on the edge of a residential road with parked cars and house. With careful positioning and a wide aperture I was able to throw the background out of focus and isolate the subject.
When it comes to photographing individual or small groups of flowers spend as much time (or more) on the background as the subject. You might want to use it to enhance the subject and it definitely should not distract from the subject.
When you are setting up your photograph look carefully at the background and the foreground. How do they interact with the subject? Or do they distract from it? Here are a few things you could do to ensure the background and subject work together for your photograph:
Move to another position
Be prepared to move to another positionto photograph your subject and experiment with what you can see in the background. Ideally you should try to use the objects in the background to frame your subject.
Throw the background out of focus
If you throw the background out of focus it can be become less distracting. There are a number of ways you can do this:
Open up the aperture. A wider aperture, say F2, means more of your photograph will be out of focus.
Use a telephoto lens. Telephoto lenses, the sort you would use to photograph objects at a distance, have a narrower depth of field than a wide angle lens, throwing more of your photograph out of focus.
Put more distance between the flower and the background. If you can, choose a flower that is separate from other objects. You might also be able to place something such as a piece of card between your subject and the background to isolate. See “Useful accessories” below.
Throw more light on the subject
If your subject seems to disappear into the background it might be that you need to throw some more light on it. If you have that piece of card I mentioned earlier you could use that to reflect onto the subject. Alternatively use fill in flash to light it.
Choose black and white
If the background includes a colour that clashes with your subject perhaps consider the photograph as a black and white image. If you can either do this in camera when photographing or afterwards. If you do it in camera using the monochrome profile you will start looking at your subject in a totally different way. It won’t be about the colour of the flower now but other features.
This is where you can start becoming more creative with your flower photographs.
Be inventive
Does it have to be in focus?
This strong daisy shaped flowers with a purple heart work well as deliberately out of focus – I think.
If your flower is a distinctive shape it might be intriguing to see it out of focus. This can create an image that suggests fading memories or difficulties hanging on to something.
Intentional Camera Movement
The bright yellow flowers of a field of oilseed turned into an abstract image with a little bit of Intentional Camera Movement
Your photograph isn’t a literal interpretation of the flower you see – it is how you respond to the flower using all your senses, and how you want to share your response with other people who see your photograph.
Move your camera during exposure to create a more impressionistic image of the flowers or flowers. Experiment with horizontal and vertical movement and with different shutter speeds.
Get in close
This was taken with an inexpensive macro adapter on the front of my lens. The quality isn’t brilliant but it creates a nice impressionistic feel.
Focus in as close as your lens allows to a single detail on the flower. If you have opened up the aperture everything else will turn a soft blur. This will also help in reducing distractions in the background.
Go monochrome
This wilting sunflower with its head dropped down is the sort of subject that works better in monochrome
Flowers are colourful subjects aren’t there? Sometimes though you might not want to focus on the colour. We have already mentioned the idea of turning your image black and white if there is a colour in the background that distracts from the subject. You might also want to choose black and white if you want to focus on the patterns and textures of a flower, for example the curves of a lily.
Useful accessories
Finally, if you are planning to photograph flowers, here are a few simple accessories to enhance your images and to make the experience a little easier for yourself.
Small spray bottle full of water. Handy for creating droplets on the petals or leaves
Light coloured piece of card. Use to shade your subject in bright light or bounce light onto the subject
Something to kneel on. You will have to get down close to your subject so something to kneel on or even lie on could be very helpful
Tripod. If you are going to be taken close-up photographs you may want to consider using a tripod to hold the camera steady
I find photographing flowers and other plants the ideal way to slow my photography (and myself) down. It’s a way of stopping and giving yourself time to really look at your subject – a flower is patient and can bear your attention – and to bring all your attention to creating the image that captures your feelings towards the subject.
I hope that the ideas I have suggested will help you create that photograph. I would love to see your results. Tag them @stephentaylorphotography on Instagram so that I can see them.
On Easter Sunday 2025 I cycled through West Dorset.
My plan, appropriate for the day, was to visit a few tiny and out of the way chapels. Along the way I climbed over the Dorset downs, encountered a fightback against an environmental disaster and made a return visit to one of my favourite places.
Arthurian connections
My first stop was at the tiny chapel of Buckland Ripers just outside Weymouth. It is a modest affair built in 1655 after a fire destroyed an earlier medieval building. It is dedicated to St Nicholas. The earlier church was possibly built by a relative of the author of Morte d’Arthur, Thomas Mallory.
From there I rode out to Abbotsbury taking the quieter coast road via Rodden and Abbotsbury Swannery. The Swannery was part of the abbey that gives the village its name. The swans were farmed by the monks for the dinner table! It is now the largest managed colony of mute swans in the world.
After Abbotsbury I cycled up the hill to the west of the village. It’s a steep climb that goes on for some time but the views from the top are spectacular. On the way up I passed another cyclist. He had just taken up cycling and at the moment he was ticking off various iconic climbs in the county – this was the second on his list. At the top of the hill I left the coast road and headed along a quiet lane that climbed over Wears Hill and into the valley beyond.
A promise to the future
I was looking for a place I had not visited for a long time. Another small chapel but this time all that remains is one wall. I recall it being hidden away beneath a canopy of trees but as I walked through the woods I discovered an environmental disaster had hit the woodland. Ash dieback had hit and the owners of the wood had taken the decision to remove the dying trees and replace them. The remains of the chapel now stood in isolation save for ranks of plastic tubes protecting young trees that would replace the ones that had died.
As I left the woodland and climbed back on the bicycle I promised to myself that I would come back one day when the new trees, a variety chosen to withstand disease, had filled the space once more.
The valley of stones
After leaving the chapel I took the bridleway that dropped me down into the Bride Valley. At some point though I would have to climb again. Above the village of Portesham close to the monument to Thomas Masterman Hardy I paid a return visit to one of my favourite places – the valley of stones. The stones were left scattered following the retreat of the ice age and they have remained there since although some of been moved. Recent evidence has suggested that some of them had been as tools by the early stone age inhabitants of the area.
One more chapel
I was on my return journey but I had one last chapel to visit. This was another one tucked away from the road. It is in the tiny hamlet of Corton on the road between Portesham and Upwey. Inside I noted a palm cross propped on a window ledge, a reminder of Palm Sunday the previous weekend.
The chapel here is dedicated to St Bartholomew. The current building was constructed in the late nineteenth on the base of a much earlier chapel. To reach it you have go through a cut in the ridge that runs alongside the road.
Back home
So that was my journey. It was a dull and overcast day (it was a bank holiday weekend!) but that didn’t put me off the cycle ride. Whenever I visit Dorset I always try to get out the bicycle with my camera. It is my favourite way of exploring my favourite place.
The other evening I went for a walk along the Holloway Road near where I live in London. It is a journey I have made many times and for many reasons. Recently, that reason has often been to photograph the trees that line it. Rather fancifully, I imagine it as a “Holloway”, a sunken track through an ancient wood.
A common alder (Alnus glutinosa) in full leaf on the Holloway Road
It will never be a proper wood. Even so there are still trees.
The Holloway Road is a major road, a part of the A1; it is busy with traffic and people almost all the time. All the trees have been carefully planted and managed, and they all probably exist in a spreadsheet somewhere. When the leaves fall, they do not lie on the ground adding to the understorey but are collected up into big bags and taken away. And when the trees die, they will not lie where they have fallen; they will be chopped up, chipped and composted. A speeded up version of their natural afterlife.
Even so, they are still trees. Something else that lives amongst us. They are the past, the present and the future The older trees have lived through a past we have not seen. The younger trees, with care, have a future we will not know. The trees flow through time around us.
And they are egalitarian. They are for all of us should we find a moment to pause and look up. They are not in private woodland fenced off with barbed wire. They are on a public highway with a right to roam. We can enjoy them at any time. Their stark beauty in winter, their soft colours in spring, their sheer extravagance in high summer and their firework display come the autumn. Or if we reach out to touch them – beyond their textures, their smooth, crinkled and crevassed surfaces – we can feel the life of the tree itself. These experiences are all available to us any time we walk down the Holloway Road.
Sunlight breaking through one of the trees on the Holloway Road
I always felt there was something magical about woods.
I began photographing the trees in lockdown when we were not free to go far. I was working from home and it was so easy to allow the moments of everyday to blur into one another so, to split my personal life from my working life, I would head out for a short walk at the end or beginning of each day. As a keen photographer, I always carried my camera with me. Within a shrunken world I began to explore my own neighbourhood in greater depth. And I became aware of the sheer amount of trees in the area around and along the Holloway Road.
It reminded me of my earlier life before I moved to London. I grew up on the edge of the countryside and in our garden there were several mature trees. I have kept memories of three of them. A lopsided Beech tree (it was too close to the neighbour’s house so one half had been chopped away); an Elm that I only really knew as a tagged stump standing forlornly in a distant corner after it had succumbed to Dutch Elm disease.
Best of all though was a horse chestnut. This grew at the edge of the garden where it dropped down towards a brook and it was our playground. In the autumn she provided us with a harvest of conkers to do battle with. All year road there was a swing consisting of a rope and a stick hanging from one of the branches. We would swing out over the drop, the rope creaking above us as it twisted on the branch.
We also used to climb through her branches; I have strong memories of reaching the canopy of leaves at the top (my feet would tingle with the space between them and the grown far below). Here I could look out beyond our house to the houses beyond.
The pond in the magical wood where I used to play as a child
Further afield, there was a wood. It was not very big although it seemed so at the time. We would explore it regularly and each visit uncovered new pathways. One week we would build a den and somehow we could not remember where we had created it when we came back; it was almost as if this tiny piece of woodland was magically changing shape on every visit.
When I moved to London it never really became my home.
It was too noisy and too big. Elsewhere I have written of my attempts to escape it, to slip out of its grasps and keep on going to somewhere quieter, where the roads came to an end. As a result, I guess I never really saw the trees for the traffic, the buildings and all the people. There were some small patches of woodland nearby – Highgate and Queens Woods – which I would regularly retreat to but, of the trees on the streets I barely noticed them.
It was a lot later that I began to see the trees. Funnily enough it was somebody from Paris who drew my attention to them. I never met them but she had written a comment about the Holloway Road at an exhibition. In the comment she said she had been drawn to this part of London because it reminded her of the boulevards of her home city. Around the same time I also learnt there were enough trees in London to describe it as a forest. So I began to look at the trees across London and on the Holloway Road in a different light.
When I walk the Holloway Road now, camera in hand, photographing them, touching them, looking up through the leaves I am reaching back through my own life. This project is as much an exploration of myself as it is of the trees of the Holloway Road.
New life on the Holloway Road
For more on the project check out the gallery page here.
I discovered a new phrase the other week – “church-crawling”. I saw it in a book called “Steeple Chasing: Around Britain by Church” by Peter Ross but it may have come from the poet John Betjeman (he was a passionate visitor of churches).
On my cycle rides I find myself drawn to parish churches. It might be that they are the obvious place to visit in a small village. They are landmarks sometimes with wonderful architectural features to observe (Ross actually describes them as living museums). At the very least they are somewhere to pause and have a sandwich amongst the gravestones. If you are lucky enough they may even be open to take a look inside.
Peter Ross’s book is a celebration of the country (and town) church. He reminds us that they are the holders of objects that would normally be housed in a museum. Ornate examples of woodwork, stonework and brasswork just sitting there waiting to be seen.
The latest one I visited was a tiny church dedicated to St Mary Magdalene in a long vanished village called Caldecote, near Baldock in Hertfordshire. It is accessed via a hardstone dotted with abandoned cars.
There may have been a church here since Norman times but the current church dates from the 14th Century. It has not been in regular use since 1974.
The church is now owned by a charity called the Friends of the Friendless Churches. The candleholders around the church (there is no electricity) are dedicated to the memory of Ivor Bulmer-Thomas who founded the charity in 1957. I just love the name of this charity. There is also the Churches Conservation Trust which does similar admirable work but the Friends of Friendless Churches has such a warm and welcoming name!
You can donate to the charity or become a member via their website.
From now on I am going to be church-crawling!
Candleholder on pulpitPainted glassThe church from the north east corner
This is one of a series of posts exploring different parts of London through photographs and words. Note that this particular post contains descriptions of violent deaths.
The history of London is hidden underfoot.
A little while ago I sought out some of that history. I walked from the Old Bailey (the Central Criminal Court) to Marble Arch along Holborn and Oxford Street.
I was surrounded by the bustle and chaos of a busy town. At the beginning of my walk on the edges of the City of London, construction companies were wrapping up for the day but I could still hear the noise of machinery behind the hoardings. Later, on Oxford Street I tucked and dived between the commuters, tourists and shoppers.
Other people had made this same journey over the centuries, some of the unwillingly.
The Old Bailey is close to the site of Newgate Prison. It stood for over seven hundred years, opening in 1188 and closing its doors in 1902 and demolished two years later.
Marble Arch, now a busy gyratory at the junction of Oxford Street, Edgware Road, Bayswater Road and Park Lane, is close to the site of the Tyburn Tree. This innocuous sounding name masked its hideous intent; it was basically a mass killing machine, where multiple people could be executed at once.
The convicted would be held in Newgate Prison and then on the day of their execution (usually a Monday) taken in a cart through the streets of London to where they would meet their fate.
Over three thousand people would end their lives doing the “Tyburn jig”; they were not dropped to break their necks as in later executions, but merely left to choke to death as they hung there.
The first recorded execution was that of William Longbeard in 1196. He was part of a protest against rising taxes and would be one of many killed here for protesting against the established order.
The range of offences people could be hanged for was wide but a lot of them especially after the implementation of the Black Act of 1723 related to the theft of property. Sometimes this could be for very minor offences such as stealing food to eat, criminalising poverty.
I wanted to explore that final journey so many people took and so on a dark winter’s night I headed out from the Old Bailey. The actual route has changed a little but it is still possible to trace it on the ground.
It must have been a chaotic and confusing experience for the convicted as they were paraded through the streets on the back of a cart. Some of them may have displayed a degree of bravado as they passed the noisy crowds that lined the route but all of them knew that their lives were no longer in their own hands and their fate awaited them at the end of the journey.
I tried to capture some of that chaos and confusion in the photographs I made.
The last person to be executed at Tyburn was John Austin in 1783. By then the area around the killing field had become gentrified and the new residents were concerned a weekly execution lowered the tone of the neighbourhood. The gallows were removed and the executions now took place within the walls of Newgate Prison.
One thing I noticed as I walked the route was how little there is on the ground in memory of those thousands of people who died here. At the end there is just a simple marker on a traffic island. London is renowned for its statues for the “great and good” – I passed one of Prince Albert, in a rather jaunty pose – but there are few for everyone else, the people. If history is written by the victors then the people who died at Tyburn were very much the losers.
I did notice, however, that someone had left a solitary rose on the marker.
