Post number seven. It’s bee a fun week of posting some of my images from the visit up Moray, Scotland at the end of last year. It’s also great to be using a blog that I’ve had for a long time now. Darker Skies started in 2009 around the same time that I signed up to Twitter, and there were times when I wondered if the blog was really needed. It turns out that it was!

I’m so glad that I didn’t delete the blog. The positivity we had towards social media has taken a severe battering over the years and has largely eroded away. I’m currently thinking over what to do with my Instagram account and whether I should invest any more time, effort and images into that platform. Social media seems to be casting longer and longer dark shadows.

As for the blogs, well they will carry on with Darker Skies coming up to 17 years of age. Even my Tumblr blog celebrated its 14th birthday at the end of last year. I just need to write more and post more often.

It’s been a birthday week for me. Some more sand through the egg timer as my Mum would have said. Each year seems to go faster and faster. Each birthday starts to take on a new meaning when you realise that some of the images in your photo archive are now reaching the age that you were when you took them. A sobering moment.

Tourists walk along the path at the Culloden battlefield site, The flag is one of many that marks where the government forces were placed on the field. A set of blue flags at the other end of the field marked where the Jacobite forces were located.

I haven’t posted a Luna pic for quite some time. Here she is watching the world go by on a sand dune at Lossiemouth, Scotland.

Simply the Best?

My favourite or best image seems to be a popular theme with the photography blogs. I enjoy seeing what photographers pick and it seems to fall into two categories. An image from early in their career or a recent photograph. I’m not going to be too ambitious and I’ll go with a recent photograph and one i just regard as being a favourite from last year.

Better than all the Rest?

Well, no. Not better than all the rest. Although I love the idea of the ‘my best photograph’ article, I do have some problems with it in that I don’t know whether its good to dilute all your work down to one photograph. I tend to divide my own work into decades because I don’t consider myself the same photographer that I was when I was twenty years on, or even ten years ago. We move on and age… like a good wine. Comparing and competing across eras is not useful. Too many variables.

Culloden Moor

So the image I’ve chosen was shot on Culloden Moor near Inverness in Scotland. It was the site of the final battle between the Jacobites led by Charles Edward Stuart and the government forces of King George II led by the Duke of Cumberland. The battle (dramatized in the TV series Outlander) ended any chance of Bonnie Prince Charlie restoring the Stuart monarchy under his father to Great Britain.

Its a site I’ve read about a lot over the past decade or so, and I finally got to visit last year. It was surprisingly busy with coaches full of tourists, but the interaction between them and the place was fascinating to watch. I would like to visit again when its quieter but I did enjoy seeing the moor and seeing people taking an interest in such a remarkable part of British history.

Back Again

It’s been a while since I posted. Time flying by and a dose of ill health didn’t help, but time to post a few images from last year’s Scotland trip.

Sadly the visit was curtailed slightly by catching flu which always ruins any exploring for photographs. No visit to Inverness, or Fort George, or any place for that matter during the second week of the visit.

Everyday Image

Some of the images have been sitting on the computer for too long. Time to put some out on the blog, so all this week I’ll be posting a new image from that trip every day.

Source: Southerly Point Photozine Released – Richard Flint Photography

Source: Accessing the Archive – Richard Flint Photography

With the eighty year anniversary of the end of World War Two fast approaching, i thought posting the photograph of my Grandad celebrating the end of the war would be the perfect image.

The photograph was found on my late Uncle’s Facebook page a good few years ago now. I was able to save a very small but decent digital copy to my Dropbox folder where it remained for many years. Getting a good print from the digital file seemed remote, though, until recent technology provided a resize solution.

I can only remember one or two conversations where my Grandad talked about his experiences during the war. His generation always seemed very reticent to talk about the war. It was always regarded as just something that had happened in the past and of no interest. Of course, it was of great interest to the post war generation brought up with WWII books, comics, movies and history programmes. Most people who went through the war probably wanted to forget about it and not talk about it.

One conversation, however, took place in 1994 during the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings. After a couple of drams of whisky, the anniversary seemed to open both my Grandparents to recollections about the war. We talked about war memories with a few surprise revelations coming out involving a wartime Leica (Grandad had one and sold it for £5!!!) and a lift from some passing American GIs (saved Grandma a long walk to the railway station though she didn’t tell Grandad until 1994! ) :) .

During the writing of this post though, something struck me. The photograph does not look like a usual snapshot. It is well framed and the exposure is very good. It looks posed and not spontaneous. The photographer knew what they were doing. It has the look and feel of a editorial photograph. Sadly I’ll probably never find out who took the photo or why it was taken. Maybe it’s best to be happy it WAS taken.

I do hope that the beer was good, Grandad. You earned it!

As for the Column in the photographs, the wikipedia entry for the Tenantry Column states:

The Tenantry Column is a monument to the south of Alnwick town centre, in Northumberland, England. It was erected in 1816 by the tenants of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland in thanks for his reduction of their rents during the post-Napoleonic depression.

I just loved how the column had been strikingly lit in green and red for Christmas.

Luna’s paw print in the sand on Bamburgh Beach, Northumberland, UK

Christmas Past

Another Christmas gone and soon 2024 will join it. It’s been an usual year for me. One of consolidation rather than disconnection that will hopefully help me in 2025. As always there will be the usual New Year’s resolutions that may or may not be broken. I certainly intend trying to keep mine of more exercise, more blogging and improving my photography. Lets hope I can keep up the pace!

Winter Beach

A week long visit to Alnwick in Northumberland added some festive fun this year. Amongst the buying of presents and a huge amount of books at Barter Books, a trip through to Bamburgh probably stands out from the week. There is something about visiting a beach during the winter to focus the mind and blow any cobwebs away.

Even Luna enjoyed the wander about the beach, although she did let the side down by getting over excited and running off exploring the sand dunes producing a worrying five minutes of where the heck is the dog?

Shifting Sands

The wind was blowing quite strongly but it wasn’t a cold breeze. That arrived the following day at Seahouses just down the coast. On Bamburgh Beach the first thing I noticed was the fantastic movement of sand that reminded me of beach I’d been on a few years ago. Its surprising how just simple things like sand blowing along a beach can bring out so much pleasure. Like its the eighth wonder of the world.

It just goes to show that a walk along a beach, even during the winter, can just tick all the boxes.