The Tarn

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PHOTO
On top of the Bowland hill with the charming name of Nicky Nook, is a tarn that is unimaginatively called The Tarn! I photographed it in eerie early morning light, just as the low clouds began to lift.

QUOTO
"By the grey woods, by the swamp,
Where the toad and newt encamp,
By the dismal tarns and pools,
Where dwell the Gouls.
By each spot the most unholy,
By each nook most melancholy,
There the traveller meets, aghast,
Sheeted memories of the Past.
Shrouded forms that start and sigh,
As they pass the wanderer by.
White-robed forms of friends long given;
In agony, to the Earth - and Heaven."
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), US writer and poet, (from "Dreamland")

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 38mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Wolfhole Crag

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PHOTO
The last wild wolf in the British Isles was reputedly killed in Scotland in 1753. So Wolfhole Crag, one of the summits of shattered millstone grit in the Forest of Bowland, is likely to have carried that name for several hundred years.

QUOTO
“We have doomed the Wolf not for what it is, but for what we have deliberately and mistakenly perceived it to be... the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer... which is, in reality no more than a reflexed image of ourself."
Farley Mowat (1921- ), Canadian conservationist and author

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 26mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.3EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

On the moors

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PHOTO
The Forest of Bowland, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is a "forest" in the old sense of the word i.e. a "waste" that is good for hunting, but is no good for agriculture. It is mainly moorland with hill farms in the valleys and on the lower slopes. However, there are a few trees!

QUOTO
"I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea,
Yet know I how the heath looks,
And what a wave must be."
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), US poet

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Focal Length: Zoom @ 36mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.3EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Simon

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PHOTO
I met Simon as I walked on a public footpath through a farmyard on the Bowland Fells. The sound as I opened a gate to walk up the hillside brought him to his stable door. How do I know his name? It's engraved on a metal sign above his head!

QUOTO
"You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead!"
Anonymous

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 80mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Ward's End

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PHOTO
I don't know if there was a Ward who built this farmstead at the end of the cultivated land, on the edge of the moor of the Bowland Fells. However, looking at the ruin today, I can't help but feel that it was well-named!

QUOTO
"All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay.
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die."
William Johnson Cory (1823-1892), English poet

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 24mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
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photograph (c) T. Boughen

A hill farm

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PHOTO
The sunlight has pierced the clouds over this hill farm in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire, and revealed that spring arrives later on the English uplands.

QUOTO
"Yain, Tain, Eddera, Peddera, Pit, Tayter, Layter, Overa, Covera, Dix", (the old words for 1-10 that Forest of Bowland farmers used when counting sheep),
R. Waterworth

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 44mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen