víderni
It means ‘a land of distant views’ in Icelandic. Whether you look across the sandurs, the vast sandy plains formed by glacier meltwater, or lagoons choked with broken icebergs…
The old adage ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’ doesn’t quite apply to Burkina Faso. In a country whose GDP is 6 times smaller than the annual turnover of a well-known UK supermarket chain…
It was long due. At last I had the chance to join the ‘trashumantes’ on their northbound journey. Temperatures of 40C, broken terrain, ticks that do not discern between animal and man…
Every November a small group of Spanish semi-nomadic shepherds from Teruel set off on a 3-week long journey and walk a flock of 5,000 sheep across 250-miles of Spanish landscapes…
There must be few places left in the UK where the direction from which the wind is blowing still matters, but North Uist is surely one of them. Here, watching the 6 o’clock news weather forecast becomes an almost mystical experience. This is especially true during the winter months, when the weather forecast brings a natural conclusion to a crofter’s working day. You watch and pay attention to what the weather presenter has to tell you, for it will determine what you do the next day. You pay particular attention to the wind, how strong it is and where it blows from. The mighty Hebridean wind can call off school, prevent you from buying your essentials from the nearest grocery shop and even force to call off the burial of a recently deceased islander.
So you watch, devotely and without the slightest cynicism, to what they have to tell you in the weather forecast, for if you’re a crofter the wind will be one of the many natural events which keeps reminding you of your strong connection with the land.
‘You see, they are leaving their children a desert’ – said Melegue pointing at black expanses of burnt land and badly cut down trees…
’1/2″ chicken wire. Gold glitter decorating spray. 1960”s kitchen cabinet hinges. Potatoes. Tea…
The photographs in this gallery were taken in wild, remote environments. Being in wilderness is a multisensory experience. Out there, in wild places, we feel totally immersed in the landscape. We smell the dryness in the air, or the moisture in the ground. We hear our own footsteps crunching untrodden ground underneath, or the gurgling noise of the stream we are about to cross. We feel the wind on our face, the sand blasting our clothes, or a sudden drop in the ambient temperature.
The photographs on this site are an attempt to translate my experience of being out there and convey that sense of excitement and awe that we feel when we travel in unfamiliar and wild places.
I ended up spending a few days in the Tohono O”Odham reservation by pure accident. I was travelling south from Phoenix towards the Sonoran Desert, where I intended to spend a few days in solitude…
As a Spanish-born UK resident, Remembrance Day has always intrigued and fascinated me…
A wet and cold summer mid afternoon. Someone is just emerging from a deep muddy ditch that serves as a convenient training pool. This is Llanwrtyd Wells, the home of the Bog Snorkelling Championships. There isn’t a shortage of bog in mid Wales, and the flat-as-a-pancake boggy field just outside Llanwrtyd, criss-crossed with deep leats, is the ideal place for the event.
There must be something in it because regular participants from all over the world come year after year to have the opportunity to snorkel in 10-degree cold chocolate water. Mind you, considering how much it rained the day I took these pictures the bog was probably the driest place to be anywhere near Llanwrtyd.
I won’t go as far as saying that I was tempted myself but there is an uncanny allure to the whole exercise, no matter how pointless and surreal it may seem.
