Category Archives: Blog

The next small group photography workshop will take place on Saturday June 15th, with a maximum of six places available… (read more)

A small window of escape presented itself… I had a look at the weather forecast …. and I was off up to Glencoe again for a couple of days… (read more)

Glaramara is one of those fells I always seem to miss out… (read more)

Given the forecast it was highly unlikely I’d make it to the hills, let alone get up any and back down again in one piece… (read more)

A couple of short and long term exhibitions have finished recently, so for a limited time I’m making a few of the prints available at reduced prices… (read more)

Awaking to clear blue skies, and knowing the hills were white, I couldn’t resist going for another walk yesterday… (read more)

My work is featured in this month’s Practical Photography magazine… (read more)

Like any good son I really know how to treat mum, so for Mother’s Day I took her for a walk up snowy Wetherlam in -15c windchill. Here are a few snaps… (read more)

This is my stock mountain walk when I don’t really have time to do one… (read more)

Recently I ended up doing the same walk on two consecutive days – Great Gable from Seathwaite via Styhead… (read more)

Yesterday was too nice a day not to go for an afternoon walk, and as the nights are drawing out I thought I may as well throw the tent in and make a night of it… (read more)

I think most parts of England have had heavy snow recently, and thankfully the Lake District has been no different… (read more)

A couple of months ago Derwent Pencils commissioned me to take a few shots of some of their products out and about in the Lake District… (read more)

You can get some hints and tips for getting the best out of your winter photography in a double page feature of mine in this month’s Lakeland Walker magazine… (read more)

Just a short newsy post to say I’ll be exhibiting at the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival this year… (read more)

The Lake District fells have suddenly had a chance to breathe in the last couple of days, poking through cloud into clear skies after lots of mild wet nonsense… (read more)

Ok, I’m not stupid enough to expect perfect weather in Glencoe in December….. (read more)

Winter is beginning to settle in in the Lakes now, and whilst we’ve barely had any snow at lower levels, the felltops are clad white, with more to come… (read more)

Please note last order dates for guaranteed delivery before Christmas are as follows: Framed prints: 14th December Unframed prints: 16th December Gift vouchers/cards: 18th December

There’s hardly a dearth of blog posts on here with a palette of blue and white, but this is fresh, local, organic, new season blue and white…. (read more)

I’ve recently been forced (willingly) to spend some time in Eskdale as I’ve been running photography courses from the Camping and Caravanning Club campsite…. (read more)

As usual I have a pre – Christmas sale running again this year… (read more)

Along with fellow photographer Jason Friend, we’ve devised a new series of ‘camera walks’ for 2013…. (read more)

If you’re a regular reader you’ll know by now how much my (landscape) photographic output dwindles during the summer months. Until about July anyway… (read more)

A relatively short post this one – after the last Skye epic I think something more digestible is in order…. (read more)

I am now running Lake District photography workshops… (read more)

My Langstrath waterfall photo is spread nicely over 2 pages of the new issue of Vagabundo, a fairly new travel magazine… (read more)

Ah Skye. The famously misty isle. Scowling cloud, surging winds, driving rain. And that’s on a good day when the midges are sent into hiding… (read more)

I’ve just received my latest book cover in the post courtesy of Northern Eye Books… (read more)

I’ve realised there’s not been much in the way of news on this page recently, though it’s probably of less interest than some of the blog posts!… (read more)

The Coniston fells are, as the crow flies and even as the bus pootles, the closest part of the Lake District for me to reach… (read more)

This weekend I found one very good reason to leap at the chance of joining the bank holiday traffic influx on the fells… (read more)

As you know I’m normally drawn to pitching camp on tops of things rather than half way up them, but I think High Snockrigg, just off the top of Robinson, offers just as fine a viewpoint… (read more)

There’s no real story to tell here, so you’ll all be delighted to know this is a bit of a random selection of images with few words… (read more)

I’m pleased to announce I’ll be taking part in a new photographic exhibition entitled ‘Northern Lights’ at Snug Gallery in Hebden Bridge… (read more)

Emerging out of Grasmere YHA into a swamp of freezing fog and the 6 inches of lying snow that had begun to fall and kept falling the previous day, I considered my options… (read more)

Yes there’s hardly a dearth of blog posts on here revolving around Helvellyn in her lovely winter coat… (read more)

There’s a new gallery of images now on the site from last week’s trip to Glencoe… (read more)

You can see some of the highlights of my year’s worth of wanderings up and around Great Gable in this month’s Trail magazine (February 2012 issue)… (read more)

Despite it being a relatively mild winter so far, the last couple of weeks have just been cold enough for all that wet grey precipitation the Lake District gets to fall as snow on higher ground… (read more)

Winter has belatedly (yay!) arrived in the Lake District this week… (read more)

Ok…. last of the 25% sale images which you’ll need to grab by the end of Sunday 11th December… (read more)

Please note that for pre Christmas delivery, last order dates are as follows:

Unframed Prints/Greetings Cards/Gift Vouchers – Thursday 15th December
Framed Prints – Monday 12th December (read more)

This week’s super sale image is from one from what ended up being a magical evening on Blencathra…. (read more)

This week’s super sale image is ‘Last Light, Liathach’ – a majestic view of the giants of Torridon in the North West Highlands of Scotland… (read more)

For the past year I’ve been spending most of my spare hill time focused around one particular mountain in the Lake District – Great Gable…. (read more)

One of the less frequented valleys in the Lake District, Langstrath (like a lot of the valleys, and indeed the mountains in the Lakes) has it’s own character and is completely different from its neighbours…. (read more)

Well this weekend I finished my year in the life of Great Gable project for Trail magazine, which is due to be published at the start of next year…. (read more)

Another week, another new sale photo with a super – generous 25% off…. (read more)

A new week and a new sale image for you….

For the third week of the sale I’ve got a classic Lake District snow scene…. (read more)

A bit slow in updating the blog this week, sorry!

In case you missed the previous news, I’m having a ten week countdown to Christmas sale, with 15% off all prints… (read more)

Sorry.

But it’s for your benefit, honest! I’m having a cracking wee sale in the run up to Chr*stmas, with a celebratory summer’s over 15% off everything…. (read more)

Those of you who follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook will know I haven’t had many escapes recently… (read more)

Giving old images the monochrome treatment when you’ve got nothing new to play with is kind of a running joke for landscape photographers… (read more)

If you’re visiting the Lake District, there’s now another place you can see my photos…. (read more)

For anyone passing through Kendal at any point, those nice people at Signature Gallery are now stocking a few of my framed black and white Lake District prints… (read more)

Following on from my first book cover earlier on this year, I’m pleased to say I’ve now supplied my second for The Lakeland Pack 2 from Walking-Books.com…. (read more)

Just to let you know I’ve currently got a (very) small exhibition of Lake District prints up at High Head Sculpture Valley just outside Ivegill near Carlisle… (read more)

And a cracking final day it was too. Ok, it wasn’t the last day, but the forecast was so unanimously crap for my actual last day I decided I was going to make this the last real one and make the most of it. So, with the alarm duly set for 3am for a dawn raid, I proceeded to ignore it completely when it went off. Stupid idea. I was on holiday. (Plan formulated when under the influence – over 300 whiskies behind the bar at Sligachan Hotel). As it happened, in a reversal of recent conditions, it was a (read more)

Yeah yeah I know, you’re telling me I’m losing days.

Ok, Elgol was day 4…. (read more)

…and the dilemma of shooting an overly shot view… (read more)

So… back home.

Probably best to break to break my trip to the Isle of Skye down into manageable chunks. Whether that’s for my sanity or yours I’ll leave you to judge…. (read more)

It’s always great seeing your work printed. Any landscape photographer knows that. (read more)

Well here it is….

You may or may not recall the winner of the Lake District Favourite View competition was announced a few weeks ago… (read more)

Despite on going efforts, successful hill/tent based photographic adventures have been few and far between recently…. (read more)

Firstly, huge thanks to everyone who entered the favourite Lake District View competition… (read more)

The competition to find peoples favourite views in the Lake District is now closed… (read more)

You can win one of my signed framed ltd edition Lake District photos (Hindscarth Edge at Dawn)… (read more)

Yesterday I managed to get myself on Radio Cumbria for an interview about my favourite Lake District view competition, which ends on June 5th… (read more)

Now my exhibition of Lake District photography at Rheged has come to a close, I’ve decided to have a sale of the remaining photos… (read more)

Not much in the way of hill based adventures to talk about recently, due to endless Lake District sunshine… (read more)

‘Those hours between night and day are always a keen challenge to one’s courage. One’s body goes mechanically through the correct movements essential to gaining height; but the spirit is not yet awake nor full of the joy of climbing…’ – Heinrich Harrer, The White Spider

Don’t worry…. (read more)

Just a quick one to let you know that my current exhibition of Lake District photography at Rheged will be ending on April 23rd.

There will be 20% off the remaining framed prints until the exhibition ends! (read more)

Spring has most definitely arrived in the Lake District…. you might not find many photos of daffodils or new born lambs on here, but they’re definitely in evidence!

As I write this the sun is even shining, so to celebrate, I’m having a big spring/Easter sale until the end of April. (read more)

Back to Great Gable again!

For those of you who don’t know, I’m currently in the midst of a year in the life of Great Gable project for Trail magazine… (read more)

For those on a budget, I’ve just introduced a new range of A5 mounted and framed prints which are exclusive to the website… (read more)

This is kind of an impromptu blog post from a wander up Helvellyn last week…. (read more)

There’s now a new gallery on the website with a selection of photos from my recent trip to the Isle of Skye.. (read more)

It’s a Lake District walk I’ve done plenty of times, but not for a while….. (read more)

There’s something about a really wild winter day in the mountains that you can’t beat. You know the ones. The ones… (read more)

My new Lake District landscape photography exhibition (with a sneaky touch of Scotland) is now up at Rheged, just on the main walkway through the shopping area. (read more)

I now have a huge 15% off all Lake District photo prints and framed photos until mid January.

Simple enter the discount code at the top of the home page when ordering.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Stewart (read more)

Please note that due to an upcoming exhibition I can now no longer guarantee any new framed print orders will be delivered in time for Christmas.

Last date for Christmas orders for unframed prints will be Monday December 13th.

Of course if you don’t need them for Christmas then please carry on ordering at your leisure. (read more)

I’ve just added a new gallery to the site with the best photos from a recent trip to Torridon in the far north west of the Scottish Highlands.

It’s a place I’ve been wanting to go for a long time, given my fondness for wild remote mountain scenery, and lived up to my expectations in every way. The weather was wild and windy (camping was a bit tricky!) but to go to Scotland for 3 days and get clear views for two of them would be pretty good. To get dramatic light as well is pretty lucky.

I’ll hopefully get round to adding more travel photos to the site shortly, but hopefully you’ll enjoy these for now. I’m particularly pleased with a couple of them (read more)

It feels like weeks since I’ve actually been out for a serious photoshoot. And by that I mean either the ‘wake up on top of  a mountain in a tent’ kind or the ‘headtorch walk up a mountain in the dark’ kind. Recently I’ve been spending lots of time behind the screen building up various stock collections, Alamy in particular (you can see my collection here), all of which is admirably productive, and a means to an end, but spirit crushingly tedious for those of us with our heads in the hills. The plan, as usual was to ascend a nice big hill with (read more)

Most of you know I hate summer by now. Actually no I don’t hate summer, just the version of it we get in the Lake District. Too many days offer grey flat muddy light, (even at dawn and dusk) and as soon as there’s any semblance of warmth in the air the thick haze obscures all but the closest views within a couple of hours. Basically, if the day does happen to be perfect, shooting times for my brand of mountain photography are restricted to between about 4.30 and 6am , or a similar 90 minute window at the other end of the day. (read more)

Once reaching the summit of Great Rigg with only Fairfield left to ascend I sat down for a while just to watch the cloud show. It was like one of those speeded up weather videos, except this was in real time (read more)

There are no photos because I didn’t take the camera on today’s Lake District walk – the Kentmere Round. This is a hard thing to do for me. Mountain walking and photography used to be separate enjoyable entities, but not any longer. (read more)

I like Cat Bells. If you’ve only ever been up it during the middle of the day then you may be surprised by this statement, knowing as you do my liking for a bit of solitude. (read more)

As I wandered up, beginning to climb above the Grisedale Valley I got sidetracked a bit as there were some photos to be had with some nice summer evening sunlight falling on St Sunday Crag. (read more)

I settled for St Sunday Crag, as I’d been after some new shots of Helvellyn at dawn for a while and the sun would be coming up in the right place for first light to play over the crags and ridges of the mountain and its neighbours Nethermost Pike and Dollywagon Pike. (read more)

Alarm…. zzzzzzz …. 4 am. Unzipping of the sleeping bag cocoon… then the outer shell of the tent. Still dark, but I can see it’s cloudy with no sign of any clear patches. Still, it’s the Lake District, things change quickly. Alarm reset for 5am. Alarm…. zzzzzzz ….5am. Unzipping ritual repeated. Lighter, no less cloud. Not looking at all promising for that beautiful view of first light striking the dark bulk of Pillar above me. Alarm reset for 5.30am. Just in case. Alarm…. zzzzzzz …. 5.30am. You get the picture. It’s a grey one. Sod it. I cosy back up (read more)

Ever since the start of last week the forecast for the weekend had been promising. It seemed as if a brief glimpse of summer would be heading to the Lake District once again. After far too many long weeks cooped up indoors by rain and low cloud, I was itching to grab the tent and tripod for another sojourn in the hills… Friday As we got closer to the weekend the forecast deteriorated slightly, but no amazing landscape shots were ever borne from clear blank blue skies, and I was heading out whatever before I went nuts. I still hadn’t (read more)

Three of my favourite things… This is barely worth repeating once more, particularly as most readers will have a passing interest in photography, but the best and most dramatic light for landscape photography occurs at the extreme ends of the day. With mountain photography, even in an area as compact as the Lake District (more on this aspect of the Lakes shortly), choice of location can often mean a 2 or 3 hour walk to your chosen location. This can mean very unsociable hours depending on your chosen viewpoint and the time of year. On a mountain summit in the (read more)

And so… to wild camping. It’s been in the local news recently (well actually, it hasn’t – parking up and camping by the roadside and leaving a mess isn’t wild camping dear BBC, but we‘ll not dwell on that here) Essentially, wild camping is technically illegal in England and Wales (different rules in Scotland and Dartmoor) unless the permission of the land owner is sought in advance, a largely impractical undertaking given the way the ownership of land, even in national parks, is divided. The general unwritten rules (increasingly well written) are to pitch above the height of the last (read more)

So… the first post… In future this blog will be used to tell you in more detail what I’ve been up to – walk descriptions and the like – as well as bits of newsy gubbins. Given the recent downturn in the Lake District’s weather (a falling into a grey wet abyss kind of downturn), there haven’t been many walks, so I’ll start of with some good news. The Autumn, Stockghyll photo above has been shortlisted for the Take A View Landscape Photographer of the Year competition. Whilst I thought I had a slim chance of reaching the shortlist, I (read more)