Winter Wanderings

Whooooaaa! Hold your horses, you haven’t missed the apocalypse, these pictures are from my morning walk around my home town.

I’m lucky that the walk between my home and that of my mother takes me through a wooded area that is more interesting on deserted days like today than when it is swarming with humans.

I particularly like the ones where nature has started to reclaim the man made objects, the Lichen on the the litter bin and the way the tree has grown around the barbed wire.

I must admit to being a bit of a loner and the sense of emptiness and the forlorn has always held a particular fascination for me. Today with the poor light and sense of overcast weather is my type of day.

Mmmmmmmm……bland.

Dearne Valley, Barnsley

Dearne Valley, Barnsley

Dearne Valley, Barnsley

Dearne Valley, Barnsley

Dearne Valley, Barnsley

Dearne Valley, Barnsley

Dearne Valley, Barnsley

Bendy Path

Dearne Valley, Barnsley

Words and Pictures © D. Archer. December 2015

Bear’s Nightmare

Words and Pictures © D. Archer. November 2015. A mixed media effort of watercolours and Photoshop.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Burnt Tree

Faded Glory

Landscape as Art

OK not as many photos as I would I have liked from Yorkshire Sculpture park but in fact the place was crawling with humans of all shapes and sizes creeping into every bloody shot. I got fed up in the end and to cap it all had an argument with a “yoof” who thought it was perfectly OK to climb on the sculptures in order for his girlfriend to capture his idiocy in technicolour for their FACETWAT page.

I have visited YSP on many occasions in all types of weather with friends and family and the place never ceases to amaze me. It’s shame this visit was tainted by the lack of respect shown to the sculptures but I’m sure they will be around a lot longer than the idiot who crossed my path.

© D. Archer . April 2015.

More camera crimes

Ho Ho Ho, it’s a good job the Scottish Tourist Information Board doesn’t know where I live, posting all these terrible photos of their stunning scenery. You as well dear reader will be glad to know that of the 89,878 photos that I took, these are the least mediocre.

Camera crimes © D. Archer, April 20015.

Insert witty title here…

Once again I have managed to reduce the immense natural beauty of the Scottish landscape down to a few blurred, badly composed and cropped calamities. Trust me, this place is much more stunning than my fat fingered fotographs could ever convey. Taken this April in the most pleasant walking weather one could wish for.

Landscapes © Deity of your choice. Happy Crappy Croppings © D. Archer, April 2015.

Winter

 

Here are some more crimes against photography I committed whilst on a recent wander.

Once again I strongly urge you to stay away, its a terrible place, all that natural light, beautiful inspiring wildlife, scenery and lung cleansing fresh air. I can’t think of anything worse. You wouldn’t like it honestly.

Landscape © Deity of your choosing, photographs © D. Archer. February 2015

Scottish Sauntering

Oooooh Spooky

Early morning mist

Bird obscured by branch

cerebral crow’s nests

Crunchy leaves

The Crook of Devon

Riverside

Aliens!

Thin Light

Green Spaces

Dusting of snow

Recent ramblings have taken me back to the stunning Scottish landscapes around the Crook of Devon (in Perth and Kinross-Shire) and I must admit the relative early morning walks were blessed by a cold crisp light that I have failed miserably to reproduce with my Pin Hole camera and turgid technique.

I would strongly urge you that if you get the chance to visit this part of Scotland then DON’T, bugger off, it’s mine, all mine!! Loved the open spaces and the lack of other humans.

All photos © copyright D. Archer 2014 not that they are worth stealing. Landscape copyright G.O.D. circa 14,000,000,000 years ago or depending on your deity.

The Northern Line

and the northern line heads north;
train and tarmac traverse forgotten agriculture
whilst against a dull horizon
the seeded rape in swathes of brushed yellow,
tractor scared, deep cut fields
frames, for a second,
the lightning split tree
that dares to bloom.

and the northern line heads north;
fleeting sheep being picturesque
cathedrals, greenery and greed juxtaposed,
the saintly and the secular
the modernist and the medieval
give way to cemeteries
filled with the unremarkable and the overgrown.

and the northern line heads north;
soon passed the ubiquitous supermarket,
factories and silos waiting to rust,
silent Sunday football pitches
scale modelled on the Somme under foot.

and the northern line heads north;
leaving hotels named after far away places,
a taunting to where you’d rather be
as more luggage and life stories
are tucked neatly above the sadness
that occupies every seat;

and the northern line heads north.

© D. Archer May 2014

Grouse

From the Hamlets
to the have-nots they come to feast
on the early seasons’ breeding;
beaten into breaking cover,
tradition, vague as the mist,
is lip service for the brochure;
the slap panic of wings
heralds the rising of the low slung stock.

The futile silhouette falls,
not stalked with one arrow
a day in the making
or one bullet priced above saffron
but by proliferation, triangulation,
muscle memory and an expensive Italian
that appeases their blood lust
by favourable odds.

Sport lies in an equal opponent.

© D. Archer. July 2014