2022 The Year in the Landscape

When I was six a year seemed a very long time. After all, one year was a sixth of my entire life! The seasons changed slowly and the summers especially seemed to last forever. But now a year is a mere 69th of my entire life. Time speeds up, except time spent in the dentist’s chair.

A moment of light in the heart of the Mourne Mountains during one of several hikes in January of this year.

One of the great gifts of photography is in relation to time. A photograph doesn’t just capture a moment but according to my photographer friend Kieran Dodds it ‘liberates’ a moment. It triggers the memory, It expands the moment. It sets it free to be examined, relived, reimagined, savoured.

Golden threads of dead grass caught in winter ice on a mountain trail. We don’t often look down.

Cameras don’t take photographs. People do. It is a very personal activity. It involves noticing. It involves responding to what catches the eye and the imagination. It involves deciding what to include and what to omit, what tells the story and what would get in the way. It involves a conscious decision when to press the button.

Sheltering out of a ferocious, bitingly cold wind, I discovered this little scene in the mountains which tells something of the experience.

Here are some of the scenes in the landscape that called for my attention this year, one for each month. Each has a personal story. Each reveals something about me. But each is also an invitation to you to take time to look and to allow each photo to speak, trigger a memory, evoke a longing; to become a window into a real or imagined life.

January

On a crisp, clear morning in early January we (Steven Hanna, my long-suffering photography companion and friend) made the long hike up the Annalong valley to this vantage point on the slopes of Slieve Bearnagh that provides a sweeping vista of Ben Crom reservoir and the high Mournes. Only a slight dusting of snow remained as the sun rose casting shadows and golden light across the landscape. I sat for a long time on cold granite following the peaks and troughs spread out before us like a panorama of life.

February

This slice of time, captured at 1/1000 of a second, is an example of liberating a moment, enabling us to press pause and consider the details of a storm. Watching a storm of any kind is very different from being in one. And I am more wary now, after losing two cameras to the sea. But there is a dreadful beauty that draws me back and back again to these monsters stirring in the deep, tossing their heads against a black sky.

March

As dusk fell on an afternoon walk in early March the sky coloured deep pink, reflecting on the sea, between rank after relentless rank of waves, driven by the wind and pulled by the incoming tide. I love this view across the bay of ancient Dunluce Castle. This is a place to breathe and dream. A place to watch and pray.

April

A cold and (we hoped) clear April night brought an opportunity to photograph the Milky Way. Layered up, we (or perhaps it was just me) laboured up steep slopes through Hare’s Gap, through frozen snow, head torches lighting our way beneath the stars. Then clouds rolled in. Hour after hour was passed in anxious and freezing (-4C) expectation. (At my age - seriously?). And then the sky cleared to reveal our place in the universe. Humbling, awe-inspiring, worship inducing moments.

May

Back to my favourite beach and to the cliff path that provides this view across the limestone cliffs and sea stacks that provide the name Whiterocks. By May the sun has moved sufficiently north to bring light and colour and a little warmth, with glorious views East and West.

June

Another storm but a complete change of scene. The trip of a lifetime, with my son Simon, on a clipper ship, following some of the 1st Century journeys of one of the great intellects of any century, and one of the few who changed world history, Saul of Tarsus, aka Paul, the great teacher, missionary, defender of Christianity, martyred for his faith in Christ. Shortly after leaving Philippi, this storm suddenly blew up over the Thracian sea with a dramatic cloud that turned a mountain into a volcano. Thankfully on this occasion there was no shipwreck!

July

A deeply personal scene for our family of Castlewellan Castle, where, during weeks of summer fun, relational depth, personal faith and lasting memories were built. During a short reunion this summer with other families from those now far-off days I used the drone to photograph the castle in its surroundings as the sun was setting.

August

A photo from an evening spent on the Causeway Coast, at the aptly named Giant’s Head. It requires a bit of a scramble to get down to sea level here. I was grateful for the company of fellow photographer Richard Watson. Some journeys are better travelled together!

September

September brought a highly anticipated trip to the Pacific North West, Washington State and Oregon. Unfortunately, the day after we arrived the smoke from a thousand forest fires moved in rendering all grand vistas virtually impossible to see, let alone photograph. I found out later that they count five seasons in this part of the world, the fifth being smoke season! All was not lost, however, as this scene near Moulton Falls, with its early autumn colours, illustrates.

October

The imposing cliffs of Fairhead provided me with October’s scene as the low sun of late autumn caught both the headland and the low lying rocks between it and the fine beach at Ballycastle. It was the transforming impact of light that caught my eye, even though I had gone to the beach with the purpose of trying to photograph sea birds.

November

Autumn colour is normally at its peak in early November and it is many photographer’s favourite season, especially if accompanied by mist. Our visit to the New Forest didn’t coincide with mist this year but I enjoyed a couple of early mornings out on Rockford Common, near to where we were staying with good friends. David joined me on this occasion as the sunrise lit up one of the lone birch trees that stood in a sea of fiery red bracken. There is something about a lone tree, especially one as graceful as this, that is a magnet for artists. Is it the individuality that especially appeals?

December

Hoar frost is something of a rarity in Ireland and when it arrives you have to try to make the most of it, without crashing the car or falling on the treacherous roads. I managed to avoid these dangers by remaining close to home, where I photographed this old farmstead, attracted by the frosted tree tops, the red roof and of course the donkeys. It is possibly my wife’s favourite photograph of mine this year, which makes it more special to me. Not quite the ‘bleak mid winter’ but it is hard not to think of the bigger story, not just behind Christmas but life itself.

If you have made it this far you have my thanks. I hope that even one of the photographs has stirred your heart and imagination. May you know light in the darkness.

Winter sunrise, Gallows Hill. A window on home.