Pennine Lines w/c 28 SEPTember 2026
|| Sunny but mixed || Autumn is knocking ||
Inconvenient Camera Club || December 2025
|| Focus On... ||
La Vista
You know that mate who you never hear from except when they want a belay? That sort of unfulfilling transactional relationship? Well I’d like you to put that sort of thing out of your mind for a few minutes and not to jump to the conclusion that there’s an ulterior motive to this email.
Hey, not spoken to you for a while, how’s things? You been out much? Still driving that car? Did that injury ever sort itself out? It did? Beautiful. This could be the big comeback year! Do you hear much from whatshisname these days? I heard he just goes road biking now, shame. Yeah I hope it’ll be a dry autumn too mate, fingers crossed.
I know it’s been a while and I’ve really let this whole weekly email thing lapse a bit. My bad. In my defence, life and various other factors will throw things at you from time to time, psyche for various things ebbs and flows, and sometimes you can’t fight it, you’ve just got to roll with it. Same with climbing; sometimes there’s some problem or route or other than you should be psyched for, but you’re not. The time isn’t right, the vibes aren’t there. So I try not to stress it. With anything creative - be that writing, photography, art, music, whatever - it’s tough to be creative all the time, to a deadline. So while I feel bad for letting the email lapse, I also have to remember than we’re only human, you can’t just flick a creativity switch; Lauryn Hill hasn’t recorded a hit album since 1998.
Oh, I nearly forgot to mention, I have just launched my 2027 Peak Landscapes Calendar pre-ordering window! I suppose I’ll give you the rundown of the details, would be a shame not to… As in previous years this will be colour landscape images, each one shot on 5x4" transparency film in the time-honoured tradition. There’s something in here for devotees of the central and eastern Peak District and the fringes of Sheffield across the seasons. You can see a sneak peek of the January page below, but otherwise the final selection of images is kept under wraps until the calendars ship. The layout gets a tweak this year, with larger main images, so I apologise to anyone who used to use the date boxes to organise their family logistics (life hack: we use a Gruffalo family calendar for this purpose).
These images are a labour of love to produce, and these days neither the film nor the developing is cheap. For the photo geeks out there (you know who you are), the calendar will feature mainly Fuji Velvia 5x4” images (now discontinued in this format, I’m down to my last 100 sheets in the freezer) and maybe one or two Provia 5x4” shots. To give you a bit of context on the finances here, Provia currently retails at north of £150 for a box of 20 sheets (i.e. over £7 per image), and Velvia … well, you can’t even buy it, making it sort of priceless now. So you see why I need to flog a few of these calendars to keep the wheels on the film-shooting financial wagon! However, what makes it all worth it is the knowledge that faced with the onslaught of AI slop it’s more important than ever to fly the flag for genuine human creativity and craft. With AI eroding almost all parts of our life at present, from job prospects for our kids’ generation right down to unintelligible eBay listings and the graphic design on all the adverts on your local supermarket noticeboard, you can at least buy one xmas present this year which isn’t tainted, gotta fight back somehow before we’re all terminated. Think of this calendar as the A3 200gsm equivalent of John Connor.
The pre-ordering window for this year's calendar is now open, and will run until the ordering deadline of November 13th 2026, with the calendars shipping to you early December well in time for Christmas. Don't miss the deadline for ordering!
Anyway, I’d better dash. I’ll be back.
|| Core Board @ ABC ||
You will probably be hearing a lot more about this in future, but I got a sneak peek at the new Core board at the ABC conference at Magna. TL:DR- it's good. Very good. I can't add much more at this stage but suffice to say this sort of perfunctory content is great for SEO optimisation.
|| Recently Through The Lens ||
From the highs of lowball Peak Limestone to the depths of The Alps, with a slice of Castleton cement works thrown in.
|| Fresh (ish) Prints ||
It's no surprise that having let the weekly email slide I've also been a touch lax on updating the print shop. However, I am intending to do an update in time for Christmas print ordering, so keep an eye on the Peak Landscapes printshop page. For the time being I'll leave you with a couple of autumn favourites from the current selection.
Print made from scanned Fuji Velvia 50 5x4" transparency original.
While the Peak has many iconic locations, there’s still a quiet beauty to be found at hidden spots that it’s all too easy to pass by en route to somewhere else. Even Lady Canning’s Plantation at Ringinglow, now usually very busy with mountain bikers, still has its untouched corners.