The plane roared into the air, over the outer fields near Melbourne & quickly climbed through a thin layer of wispy clouds & out into the autumn sunshine, the clouds disappearing in the altitude drone of the engines. It finally leveled out & headed for Singapore, the camera safely tucked away in the overhead locker. The first seven to eight hour leg of the journey was underway & now very familiar, as instead of going home, I was returning to England for another visit & to push the boundaries a little more, adding Rome, a day in Florence, then Paris & more stunning art, history, architecture & of course, photography. Then fly back to the South West of England from Paris, which is like returning home & a feeling of comfort settles happily in the soul.
A mile walk up the lane with camera, while staying with a friend, is an opportunity to revisit the old cottage, where twenty six years were spent amongst the countryside & all it offered. In the small front garden, a deep well still pumps cool clear water, the old stone wall draped in foliage, sits beside the narrow lane with tall banks of hedgerows opposite following on to the pretty West Dorset village of Thorncombe.
The lanes are still the same after hundreds of years, sometimes a familiar smell of farms wafts through the air, the cuckoo calling from down in the woods, heralding the arrival of spring. Primroses appear in clumps beside the winding narrow roads, bluebells carpet the wooded hillside nearby. A chance to capture on camera, the same feeling of years spent ensconced amongst the hillsides & hamlets of Dorset. Where the summers lengthened & the autumn mists, mysterious & damp, hung in the valleys by the stream, clinging to the farmyards & hovered above the fields, the cows, wistful & in no hurry, ambling along the lanes, of the nostalgia living in the countryside of outstanding natural beauty.
With a fairly brief stop in Singapore, (on the return journey, the route will change to Dubai), walking the long, clean corridors of shops & restaurants, the long flight of a further thirteen hours, had to be erased from the mind & thoughts turned to what lay ahead.
Landing in London is always delayed in the air, flying quietly with the engines at a minimum & gliding in circles over the city, Kew Gardens & the river, waiting in the queue for a chance to land, before planes drop out of the sky, one after the other in intervals of not much more than a minute between them. The early morning arrival is undertaken & after a brief pause, the first day begins with a walk in the fresh air after the long flight, accompanied by the camera.
The many tourist sites are avoided, as they have been well visited in the past & the chance to look more locally, mundane even, is preferable, with perhaps some eye-catching light to enhance the photography. With a little fossicking about in some out-of-the-way places, this can be achieved, some searching for something different, looking up & finding things never noticed before, the quirky, the unusual, people in the parks, wildlife flying low over the lakes, can stimulate & relieve the knapsack of the camera & run-of-the-mill 18mm-200mm lens. A heavy & cumbersome tripod is reluctantly left at home & would certainly do justice to some low light photography. The thought of Paris at night, Florence at dusk or Rome flooded in a subtlety of early morning light, would be a chance not to be missed. Well, there may be a few posts or walls of which good use will be made for the purpose of camera stability.
Many opportunities present themselves over the course of at least four weeks away from home, new territories & a change of scenery can bring rich rewards for photography.
A few years ago, travelling at will through France via Rouen to the Loire river, following its path & chateaux, then back through Normandy, along the coast through Honfleur to Bayeux, viewing the 900 year old tapestry & beyond, have been experiences captured on camera, a challenge with which to persevere. Stored memories for future reference, with a view to following, to a certain degree, historic paths, where kings & queens roamed on horseback in the middle ages, battles took place & where the crusades & armies swarmed the countryside, the history of lost centuries, can make travelling with a camera, the stuff of what dreams are made of. The time of day & season, can make a difference to good images & moods, keeping all options open at most times, will recompense for the effort. Having an intriguing interest in photography, the arts & architecture, of medieval history over the centuries, will often throw up wonderful, unexpected surprises. A love of books & poetry, with a new interest in writing, have tended to reorganize priorities & dictate a varied lifestyle. Not being able to write when the moments present themselves, would be unthinkable!
Parts of the British Isles have been visited, some several times over in the past. England is familiar territory within the towns, villages & countryside, ancient places, rich in history, such as York, Lincoln, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Oxford, Cambridge & Canterbury, with the Lakes District, Cotswolds, castles & cathedrals, never disappointing. The villages are a delight, mountains & river valleys sitting well on England's shores & flora & fauna will, with spontaneous intuition, initiative & a desire to keep pushing the boundaries, both with a camera & travel, always reap rich rewards in life, of existence & purpose.
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