Close Up & Macro Photography book out now

T's latest book has just been published. As well as being a technique guide, it is crammed full of her beautiful close up shots.

Close-Up & Macro Photography (Expanded Guide: Techniques) at Amazon.co.uk 
Close-Up & Macro Photography (Expanded Guide: Techniques) at Amazon.com

Quote from a boat

'Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink, for thirst is a dangerous thing.'

Three Men and a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

Canon EOS 60D - The Expanded Guide

The latest expanded guide, written by Tracy, has just been published. As you may have noticed from the image above, it's on the Canon EOS 60D. Besides being a great read, it's also lavishly illustrated with T's photographs.

Have a look at:
Canon EOS 60D (Expanded Guide) on Amazon.co.uk
Canon EOS 60D (The Expanded Guide) on Amazon.com

Islands, encapsulated

D E Allen sums up the lure of islands in Flora of the Isle of Man.

"All islands have a special fascination: they can be an adventure to get to; they are liable to harbour entities that occur nowhere else; they are satisfyingly well-defined areas, "

An island definition

There are many definitions of what makes an island, but one in particular still seems to hold sway:

"the 1861 Census decreed that an island is 'any piece of solid land surrounded by water which affords sufficient vegetation to support one or two sheep, or is inhabited by man'."

BERRY, R. J., 2009. Islands.

This works for us. It makes it easier to find the cut-off point between a rock and an island. M. Shea agrees:

"If a piece of land will support a sheep, it is an island; if it will not, it is a rock."

SHEA, M. 1981. Britain's Offshore Islands

Strangely Warmed by Andrew Rumsey

Strangely Warmed by Andrew Rumsey

T's photo of Brighton Pier has been used for a new book: Strangely Warmed by Andrew Rumsey. Andrew came across it looking at The Sunday Telegraph online competition, and it was exactly the image he had in mind!

Strangely Warmed on Amazon.co.uk

Strangely Warmed on Amazon.com

The Lost Leader by Mick Imlah

I took Mick Imlah's last book of poetry The Lost Leader with me on our trip to Mull and the ensuing islands earlier in the year, thinking it would be perfect to dip into while we were up there. It was, but somehow I didn't have enough time to read it all. The first poem of the collection was one that I couldn't stop re-reading, it was entitled Muck. As it turns out, we're hoping to get to Muck in October as part of our next batch of islands in Scotland. The poem as a whole is so complete but these three verses and one line offer a flavour of what we might expect from Muck.

So we did go, in wash-tub coracles,

and hauled ashore for an hour or so, on a
black upturned platter of rock, stained
with sea-lichen and scummy pools
of barge flies and crab water.

No trees, then. No welcoming men
or women either. But out on a spur's end
we spotted a sham temple - being a few
upright poles fashioned from driftwood, which

when we straggled over to them, seemed,
without a text or rune to vent their purpose,
to have their say in fish.

Listen to the whole poem at The Poetry Archive
Interview at Oxford Poetry
Review at TLS

The Lost Leader on Amazon.co.uk
The Lost Leader on Amazon.com

The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane

TH: Last night I was reading Robert Macfarlane's wonderful book The Wild Places. Part way through a chapter, Macfarlane suggests that we 'draw happiness from landscapes both large and small' and that most of these places are not marked as special on any map. 'But they become special by personal acquaintance.' As I drifted off to sleep, it got me thinking about the times when I have truly connected with the landscape, and whether I could draw a mental map through my life based on these experiences.

I started thinking about the shade of a weeping willow we used to sit under at primary school. How we used to plait its dangling hair to kill time during the lunch break. Then I recalled the damp, spongy moss that once grew on the steps outside my parents French windows, and how nice it felt under bare toes. Next I was in Slovenia, plunging my aching feet into a mountain stream, and relishing the pleasure/pain of the icy water. As I drifted off, I started to think of the landscape encounters still to come.

Review at The Independent
Interview on Radio 4
Interview at The Guardian

The Wild Places on Amazon.co.uk
The Wild Places on Amazon.com