Hello? Is there anybody there? Oh hello dear reader and welcome back! I have had a dust around, cleared out the cobwebs and tidied up the mess left by the cat! Yes you can sit there while you read, that’s fine.

First up I have recently found out I have once again made the shortlist of the British Photography Awards with the image below, “Lest we Forget”. I am particularly happy with this as it is one of my personal favourite images so I hope it does well. It is also available as a limited edition print so please contact me via email if you would like one.

Also my autumn workshops are now live! Please head over to my Workshop page to see availability and how to book.

Next I finally managed to get out in the camper for a proper photography overnighter and where else would I have gone but Dartmoor!

I drove down Sunday morning, leaving at 4am but still got overtaken by Dave on the way down! We were taking separate vehicles as he had to go back home the same day sadly. When I arrived at the woodland we had decided to aim for it was not looking very foggy at all, despite driving through some to get to it. Matt Dixon, an excellent woodland photographer had also just arrived and we had a brief chat before he headed off in the hopes of finding some fog among the trees.

I tackled the climb valiantly but a summer of not doing much and an increasingly arthritic knee meant I struggled a bit and was pretty much soaked through by the time I reached the first spot I wanted to concentrate on. I recently purchased a poncho from a company called Jack Stillman and I wore it on the hike up as my waterproof coat was still in the back of Dave’s car from a previous trip! I found the Poncho to be comfortable and was certainly waterproof on the outside…shame about my sweat soaking it from the inside!

Here is the first image from the session

After. this I hung a sharp left and straight up a near vertical incline where I eventually huffed and puffed my way into the lads who had all made it to the top ages ago and were filling up on the compositions! Along with Dave and Matt I had the pleasure of the company of Ryan Seymour, Nick Green and Neil Burnell. all outstanding woodland photographers and good fun to hang with.

We all worked our way along the top of the woods, a place I had never quite reached before on previous visits. There were some truly outstanding scenes up here but my particular favourite was this one I have titled the “Path of the Headless Horseman” after Christopher Walkens character from Sleepy Hollow. I could just imagine him riding full pelt along this path, racing to find his next hapless victim!

I will post some more images in my portfolio at some point. We spent several more hours wandering the woodland, my remit today being to get varied compositions I hadn’t gotten before in previous trips. I think I mostly succeeded in this.

After making my way back down to the car park some of us met up and I made everyone teas and coffees while we planeed our next foray. Dave and Nick had left at that point leaving Matt, Ryan, Neil and myself to mull over the next spot to visit. For me it was food time! I had not had anything to eat since the night before and had missed first breakfast AND second breakfast so was determined not to miss out on elevenses! The lads all headed off to another woodland while I paid a visit to a local cafe and treated myself to a bacon and egg sarnie. After the gap was suitably filled I took advantage of the toilet facilities and then headed off in search of the rest of team Dartmoor. I eventually got hold of Matt and he informed me they had gone to a woodland Neil knew but it was quite the hike and wasn’t looking promising for fog so I opted to find a spot to park up and do a bit of editing on my MacBook pro instead. It was a pretty nice view from the door of my van thats for sure and very inspiring to actually edit up some Dartmoor woodlands while still being on Dartmoor!

I eventually met up again with Matt and Ryan at our designated camp site for the evening, a parking spot next to one of the spookiest woods on the moor. The fog was really thick in this area and after booking a table for three at the Plume of Feathers (more on this in a bit!) we decided to head over to an old farmhouse that Neil had kindly provided the location of to get some shots of it, one of which is below. I think you will agree it is pretty foreboding!

After this we all piled back into the camper (I was designated driver for the evening) and headed to the pub. Now, I had phoned up and booked a table for three at 7pm but when we arrived at just before that we were told that the pub was closing at 7pm and the kitchen had been closed all day due to an issue! So not only did the idiot on the phone forget to mention the pub was closed at 7 he also failed to mention the kitchen was closed anyways! Clueless

After a couple of calls we managed to secure a table and some food at another nearby pub and I have to say it was lovely and far better than the Pot Noodle I was facing!

The journey back to the campsite was particualry fun mainly being a game of “guess where the road is” as it had gotten so foggy I could barely see 20ft in front of me but we eventually made it back-after also negotiating a herd of very large cows blocking the lane-and all collapsed into our beds for the night.

During the night Lee Cooper finally showed up and the following morning we had a catch up chat and worked out where we were all going for the day. The three lads were gunning for Wistmans wood but I had another, more cunning plan after checking the weather. I knew of another wood not far away that I had previously visited with Dave, who had discovered it a while ago on one of his recces to the area. Within was some really interesting compositions but they needed fog to work and up until today I had never had any in there. Today though!

Upon arrival I decided to try to be clever and find a shortcut to the little wood but ended up getting lost among a pine forest instead! After eventually finding my way out I mumbled and grumbled my way to a parking spot near the wood and panicking slightly that the wasted time meant the fog would have moved, headed in.

It was fine though and was delighted when I found the trees I wanted to photograph shrouded in the magical white stuff (easy Joe). I bagged up on the previously planned compositions and eventually got back to the van a happy boy, until I realised my camper was surrounded by another herd of cows! It took a while to negotiate passage but eventually I managed to get in and make my home a tired but very happy photographer!

So what next? Well I have a few workshops booked up for Autumn but still some available if you would like to attend one. Please head over to my Workshop page to contact me if you are interested. Also, I am hoping to pay a visit to Luskentyre finally in early October. Probably head up for 4-5 days and explore the area, which should be an adventure. I was also planning to head over to Glen Coe while I was up there but think I might have to put that off for another time.

Tonight I am heading down to Dorset as lots of mist has been forecast and I am going to keep everything crossed that it hangs about where I will be in the morning!

Thats it for this one, thanks for reading

Toodles

Dartmoor meet up

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Dartmoor meet up

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