Move Mountains

Pleased to see my image of Chrome and Parkhouse Hill published in the Travel section of Saturday's Guardian this week. 'Move Mountains' was a nice two page spread on walking off the UK's beaten tracks, suggesting you ditch overcrowded Mam Tor and the Great Ridge in the Derbyshire Peak District for the quieter challenges of these two wonderful Carboniferous limestone reef remnants.

Taken almost ten years ago on a clear evening walk with fabulous light in early September, I remember the joy I felt as the young climber, unknown to me, struck a perfect pose as he reached the summit of Parkhouse Hill.
Figures lend scale to the landscape and encourage us to become emotionally engaged and it's this that picture editors are increasingly looking for in landscape shots.

The Guardian also published an expanded web version of the article which you can see here.

Organic farming at 6,000 feet in the Himalayas of Northern India

The village of Supi high in the foothills of the Himalayas in the Uttarakhand region of Northern India, grows lush crops of wheat and barley in its south-facing terraced fields.

The crop is organic by necessity as no herbicides or pesticides are used and could not be afforded in any case. Consequently the fields are shared with wild flowers and insects, including bees and butterflies.

 Women collect fodder for their farm animals each morning, providing them with a rich and varied diet and 'weeding' the fields in the process.  The farm animals, mostly cattle, sheep and goats, are not eaten but provide milk or wool and manure, which is mixed with fallen leaves to spread on the land each year to put back what has been taken out.

Woman collecting fodder for her animals

Herbs and spices, garlic, cabbage and spinach are grown in smaller plots and gardens close to the house, so the totally vegetarian diet is varied and interesting, usually spicy and very Indian.

A woven basket of fodder ready to be carried home

There are no fences, private land or keep out notices so children walk to school along narrow field paths

Lichen Garden in the Temperate Rain Forests of New Zealand

Colourful lichen community on montane rocks of South Island New Zealand

The high alpine rain forests of South Island New Zealand are amongst the wettest places on earth with heavy rain for five days out of seven and annual rainfall ranging from five to eight metres!

The constant humidity provides perfect conditions for moisture loving plants like mosses, ferns and lichens.

Many rocks are covered with several species of lichen but the most eye-catching is undoubtedly the bright orange/red Xanthoria species pictured here. It seems to be displaced by more dominant lichen species as their colonies spread over the rock, providing a background to their more subdued palette of greens, greys and pinks. But the overall effect is a beautiful painterly abstract on the rock surface.