Blog
Musings on photography, mental health and mountain life.
At War With my Ego
In a year where I have been learning to battle the inner negative rhetoric. To have more belief in myself, and more self-confidence. To now suggest that you can’t do everything you want, or rather you can but some of those things won’t end well ergo you can’t or at least shouldn’t, seems contrary to all that I have been learning.
Meeting Myself: When the Horse Bucks
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I drove to meet a friend for lunch. The boy I had met was a memory I had of me aged 19. For the first time since I was this boy, I had somehow been able to find the mental space and distance to understand what he was struggling with.
Filling The Soul Cup
Gently touching down and letting my wing fall behind me, I turn, take a huge breath, look back up the valley, smell the early morning dew, smile the smile of The Cheshire Cat and feel the pride of knowing I did that on my own and its mine alone to indulge in.
Weathering the Storm: Giving Something Back
It is a sad indictment of society that by now few people will not have been touched in some way by the tragedy of suicide. CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) estimate that in the UK around 125 people per week die taking their own life, of which 75% are male.
Weathering the Storm: Part 3
Hindsight offers a clarity of thought seldom available where heightened emotions are involved. It’s only 2 years after the event that I feel able to slightly better articulate those feelings of loneliness. In my case as with many of my mental health problems, the root cause stems from within. My lack of self confidence, of real direction in life, the continuing success of my girlfriend’s law career and her designs on life all contributed to a deep sense of unworthiness, isolation and ultimately loneliness.
Weathering the Storm: Part 2
The next few hours were a haze of friends leaning over me, MRI scans, doctors and nurses coming and going, more visits from friends, catheter wars and then sleep. When I came too finally and was a little more lucid, I struck up a friendship with denial.
Weathering the Storm
So it came to be that I found myself on a climbing trip in the south of France, sat on my rope bag by the river writing myself a list of reasons to stay (to live) versus ones to leave. The list in favour of ending it all flowed so easily, bullet point after bullet point mounted up whilst only two reasons for staying emerged. One, I didn’t want to be responsible for inflicting the hurt and pain that my death would bring to those who have loved me and stood by me for so long. Two, I didn’t want to die, I just couldn’t see a way to make the hurt stop.
Spring Photography in Yorkshire:
Injury is restricting me from adventuring into the alpine or even the mountains of the UK. Finding beauty more locally is what this post is about
More Speed, Less Haste on Gran Paradiso
Last year, between lockdowns and injuries, I wanted to capture sunrise at the summit of Gran Paradiso. After this, I wanted to fly from below the summit back to the car. This is the story of my attempt(s).
Introspection
As you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do, determined to save the only life you could save…
Happiness and the Necessity of Risk
It’s been on my mind for a while to try and put into words how I have come to realise that my happiness seems dependent upon a certain amount of personal, physical risk…
Monch, Mindfulness and Salvation
I am drawn to landscape photography, perhaps because it’s potentially the easiest of the different genres, or perhaps (as I like to think) because it helps me to realize the beauty around us.