The Wyre Forest sits on the border of Worcestershire and Shropshire. Once a source of fuel for local industry, it is now the largest woodland nature reserve in England. Today, the forest is a place of dog walkers, mountain bikers and horse riders, of children playing, and remote, almost wild, outreaches. My relationship with the forest started as somewhere to go for a walk at the weekend — somewhere my son could safely ride his bike.

We live a couple of miles from the centre of Birmingham, which is itself about 20 miles from the forest. While there are many good things about living in Birmingham, it can feel claustrophobic — the sprawl, the congestion, the industry. Sometimes — quite often, in fact — I just need to get out. And that’s where WYRE began: a need to escape the city, practise my photography, and hopefully improve it. Woodland work isn’t easy, but like anything, the only way to get better is to do it. So, about 18 months ago, I started making regular trips to the forest, often on a Friday afternoon after work.

At first, my goal was simple: go for a walk, take a few photos, and unwind after the week. In truth, I wasn’t really sure how much photographic potential there would be. But I quickly realised that photographic potential is all around us — we just have to be there to see it.

It amazes me how often I’ll walk and walk, seeing nothing, then stop to take a photo, and suddenly find one or two more in that immediate area. I’m sure part of it is that I’ve paused in a more interesting spot, but I think it’s also because I’ve stopped at all. Stopping creates a photographic opportunity — which, for me at least, is the opposite of what I’d expect.

There’s always the imagining — or maybe the fear — that you have to walk miles upon miles just to find one image worth making… and even then, the light probably won’t work. While that may sometimes be true, it’s just as true that, if you stop and let your brain absorb the world around you, images present themselves.

But even knowing that, I always face apathy beforehand. Most visits follow a familiar arc — I can’t be bothered today / I won’t take any good photos anyway → No — I’m going to go → the drive, slowly unwinding from a week at work while listening to a podcast → exploring a few miles of forest → finding something to photograph → driving home, convinced nothing I took was good — but knowing I felt better for having gone.

More often than not, I’d get home and find that one or two of the images were usable. Seldom did I come back with nothing — and even when I did, I’d learned something. The more I visited the forest, the more I realised just how much opportunity it holds. As my images improved, I began to tentatively look for themes and to understand whether I could create a project from the work.

I’m not sure why my brain thinks in projects, but it does. Whenever I find something interesting, it always forms in my mind as a sequence — something more than an individual photo. Earlier this year, I decided I had enough images for a short e-book. So, trying not to overthink it, I sequenced and released it for free on my website.

There is catharsis in that for me — taking the images I’d made and putting them out there, to have a life of their own. Whether that’s for five people to see or five thousand doesn’t really matter. I can consider them ‘done’.

Well… until I inevitably decide to re-edit some of them one day.

In doing that, I allow myself to move on to the next chapter. My vision for WYRE is for it to be roughly yearly — and while I’d love others to download it, ultimately it’s something I do for myself more than anyone else.

What the next iteration or chapter of WYRE will be remains to be seen. Recently, I’ve been drawn more to the areas around the forest — to the places it shelters — and I think the work may take a more documentary turn.

I’m working on other projects that may develop a stronger narrative, but WYRE will continue alongside — a quieter study in patience, escape, and a drive to do better work; a belief that if I look, I will find.

“Briar Patch Companion”, Early Spring 2025

This springtime in the Southeastern U.S., I felt a vivid sense of invigoration and motivation almost every time I visited the woods of a nearby mountain. Despite the constant distractions of a restless news cycle, I felt more attuned to nature's rhythms this year. In late April, I was very glad to receive a gentle reminder of a simple lesson nature had taught me years ago, when I tended to be more receptive to such things: that the beauty of life, in all its complex and varied forms, tends to show up in unexpectedly simple ways.

Our forests here in the Tennessee-Georgia mountains are chaotic and tricky to navigate, both physically and creatively, with a camera. Brambles, deadfall, saplings, vines and other havoc form the understory of the woodlands I enjoy, but every so often, standing above the mess, a new friend waves hello and asks for my attention. I have learned to heed these silent gestures—not just for the nice images they sometimes yield, but also for the relationships they can help build. Attention almost always develops into intention.

The quiet waves are a welcome sight, as modern life has a way of keeping my mind wrestling with itself over mundane things like politics, job stresses and (perhaps not so mundanely) the reconciliation of my personal values with the beliefs of some of the people I am close to. Contrasting strongly against the noise and tedium of the manufactured world, I’ve found the forest to be full of warm welcome, and I’ll gladly accept a humble “hello” from a stationary stranger on my dark days.

It was from a winding, apprehensive inner life, combined with the physically painful tangles of vines and thorns in these woodlands, that I found myself happy to rest in the shade of a newly grown light-green canopy, setting down my backpack and allowing my heart to slow after hiking up a steep hill. The reason I’d stopped wasn't to shed a layer or to take a pee; it was because someone, not a person, had waved at me and it would have felt rude to keep hiking.

On this partly cloudy day in Spring, a tree’s slender arms formed countless Vs and Ys as it stood out against the darkness of the forest. It drew my attention from across a steep, cluttered ravine, just as thin clouds passed overhead and my breath rose and fell loudly in my head. The shifting light revealed textures of cracked bark that had been concealed in shadow on previous visits. Relief caught my eye, and a different kind of relief washed over me. It was time to go make an introduction.

I crossed the dark gully through several thickets of blackberry, earning a few new holes in my old T-shirt. Tucked between the chest-high branches of briars, I found slippery footing among embedded boulders still plastered with brown, decomposed leaves from the winter, as well as saturated lichen. I pictured a video game character hopping between rounded platforms in a sea of lava, but the going wasn’t exactly fun or exciting. A few choice words crossed my lips, but I managed to slowly negotiate the cluster without dampening my enthusiasm.

Finally, having reached the beckoning giant, I set down my camera bag and stood still, finding it surprisingly easy to ignore my ruminations and mental chatter. A quiet gratitude began to warm inside me as my breathing settled. I silently thanked the new oak for sharing its space—away from the chaotic, nagging thorns that had slowed my approach, and for the emotional distance it offered from lingering motivational setbacks, negative self-talk, and ever-present imposter syndrome.

“Reawakening”, Late Spring 2025 - A newer friendship realized just a few weeks later, after three years exploring its mountainside home.

The tree had an impressive yet unassuming presence, quietly overtaking my sense of purpose. Not a giant, nor a dwarf—just somewhere in between, ordinary in most ways. Looking upward, I realized I stood too close to frame a worthy portrait, but I reached out to touch the old oak with my hand, red with new scratches, out of respect. It would have felt too rushed and transactional to photograph it right away, to force a superficial relationship, without proper introduction.

This was the first sweat I’d felt while visiting here since early Autumn, and the new humidity caused my clothes to stick to my skin. As the forest thickened with even more undergrowth in the coming weeks, sweat would become a real hindrance to my mood and motivation. This place would inevitably fill with ticks, snakes, and hornets—creatures best avoided until the cooler temperatures of Fall drive them into the forest floor. Today, thankfully, shade worked alongside a generous breeze to cool my thoughts and emotions. It would be good to make some photos with help from my new buddy—this oak, who I realized in fact had secretly watched me walk past a dozen times already. We had just met, at last, and our next encounter couldn’t be guaranteed here on the edge of approaching Summer.

Clouds couldn’t be seen through the canopy, but I knew many passed overhead because of their effect on the trunk and appendages. Sunlight transitioned noticeably from extremely bright and spotted to boring, dark, and flat. Somewhere in between, the curve of the trunk and angles of the branches were afforded some dimension by waves of diffused, directional light.

Eventually we got there, working together between the clouds, to make something where once there was nothing. Nothing, only in the sense that my time with this oak did not exist before that day, and we never had anything to share with each other. I decided on an aspect ratio that honored the balance I discovered among its many branches. I turned the focus ring on my lens to crispen the oak’s torso, while I allowed some of its branches, and the background plantlife, to slightly blur. This seemed to align with my experience of our first meeting, when I was catching my breath and could only see clearly a short distance ahead. Then, I gave my polarizing filter a last experimental twist to help decide how much shine, if any, the thousands of lime green leaves should impart to my camera’s sensor.

Perfect light came and went gently and, with the shutter finally released, I knew the relationship bridge between me and the one who waved had been crossed. My brief time with the oak might even yield an image we would both be proud of. Until I would eventually return to this patch, whether in two days or in a couple of months, I would remain grateful for our time together and the simple lessons I relearned throughout our visit. They say creativity is not a linear process, and I’ve realized that neither is a person’s openness to the things they consider beautiful.

I wouldn’t know for a couple of weeks how much I actually liked the photograph. At first, it felt almost too spare—too quiet in its simplicity—or a bit obvious at times. But over time, something began to shift. I kept returning to it, almost unconsciously, as if drawn by a calm presence. The composition, which at first seemed elementary and straight on, began to reveal a quiet elegance I hadn’t appreciated at first glance. The open-handed gesture of the branches, the balance of the scene, the way the light slipped gently across the frame—none of it demanded attention, yet all of it held its own kind of grace. It was like getting to know someone who doesn't speak loudly but whose words live on in memory. Within all four corners, I found something lasting—not in complexity, but in clarity.

“Memory of the Present”, Winter 2024 - A few acquaintances I finally got to know better at the end of last year.

Most trees demand more than one meeting to make their best photograph, and, just as with people, sometimes the truest friends are not the ones who dazzle you at first but the ones who invite you to keep looking and listening.

These things don’t reveal themselves in a single snapshot moment. They ask for patience, and they reward it with depth. Like any meaningful relationship, the more time I gave it, the more beauty I found waiting to be seen. This friendly oak, which had long been a hidden, unseen presence, will be a trusty companion on all my future walks through the briars.

We interviewed Marc Wilson at the Royal Armouries way back in 2013 when he was out promoting his Last Stand book on the relics of wars. He's currently promoting a Kickstarter campaign to help in the publication a new and predominantly landscape project about the relics of our industrial past. We asked him a few questions about the project.

Can you give us a short summary of how you found yourself on the verge of going to print with this new book and what it’s about.

Even before I made The Last Stand (2010-2014) during much of the first decade of this century, I was travelling throughout the UK, making inroads into various projects that were never completed for various reasons.
Above all my not being satisfied with them. These covered topics such as tourism, leisure and perhaps not surprisingly, give the landscapes I was finding myself in, industry.

Do you see The Edge of Ruin as a conceptual continuation or as a new chapter in your long-term documentary narrative?

For me it is very much a continuation of one of the two strands of work that I make - which are both connected of course. My long term projects have taken the form of either more overtly Documentary work - such as ‘A Wounded Landscape, bearing witness to the Holocaust’ and ‘The Land is Yellow, the Sky is Blue’ and my more topographic, but still subject based, work, ‘The Last Stand’ and ‘Remnants’. This new work, ‘The Edge of Ruin’ ‘fits’ more into the topographic / survey strand of my work. So whilst on the face of it the landscape itself has become the subject, I view it very much as object as well as subject, much as I did the man made fortifications in The Last Stand. I work very much on each subject I approach on an individual level, not working to any pre-determined formula, either in terms of the visual or the working method.
So for each new body of work, alongside initial subject research is a period of visual research where I will visit locations and find the best working method in terms of both what is of interest and my approach, feeling, light, weather. So I can then take this visual methodology into each location with me, still though allowing for the locations and what I discover there to determine the final photograph.

What drew you specifically to the industrial landscape and what kind of story do you think these sites are still telling today?

For me the point of interest here is the created landscape, formed by both nature and man, borne out of industry and the search for power and wealth. So what you find at these places is something that is at the same time both natural and artifice. What I have avoided is making work about the remaining edifices, the man made buildings. Whether these stand, preserved for heritage, or crumble into the landscape, what I soon found I wanted to do was look beyond these and onto the physical landscape itself, much of which is as much as an artifice as the buildings.
What I found whilst making the work also is that these sites became for me a marker, not just of the past but a likely future if we continue on our current path, in terms of our disdain for the natural world around us.

Many artists incorporate the physical act of walking and exploration of terrain (both internal and external) in their work. Did this process become part of your project and influence the emotional tone of your images?

Whilst not visualised in the work, the act of having to walk in many cases long distances to these sites, certainly played its part in forming the imagery for this work. Both in literal visual sense but also in the mood it led me into once I had arrived to make work. I found I was never simply waiting to arrive at my destination but the whole journey there became the lead up to the photograph, to my understanding of the land I was walking into, and then through.

How has your experience of book creation (design and commission) developed since your original publications?

With each new book I hope I learn not simply more about the production process, through collaboration with designers, copy editors, etc, but more importantly how the books are viewed and read by the audience. Then I take those thoughts into my next book and try focus the design to answer those questions.
Questions such as size, cover material, paper choice, placement of text, etc. They all play such an important role in the overall ‘feel’ of the book, which is different every time depending on the subject matter. These days the costs of production have increased so much since I first self published

The Last Stand in 2019 that many of these choices have to be made within a budget - both in terms of the funds available to print (what I can raise on the Kickstarter) and balancing the cost of the book for the buyer.

I notice you’ve included mentoring rewards in your Kickstarter campaign. Is this something you’ve done before and is it something you’d like to develop?

I’ve done lots of teaching over the last 20 years, both in semester long modules and visiting lectures and tutorials. So for me starting mentoring a few years ago was a natural extension of that. I really enjoy the process as it allows you to work with an individual on long term projects, giving them all the help they are looking for both in terms of a specific series they are working on but also, more long term with their overall photographic practice. These can work both in person and online so which is great.
Currently for example I am working with one photographer in The Netherlands online and one in my home city of Bath in person.

Part of the Kickstarter process inevitably creates a connection between an artist and their audience. I’ve seen you making these connections before in your previous developments. How important is this to you and what do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of either a standoffish approach to an overly familiar one?

It’s important to me. I enjoy that connection with my audience. I don’t feel the need to create an ‘aloof’ aura, rather preferring to let the work set itself apart, if that makes sense. It is also the element of my appreciating the support for my practice that people give me. Obviously people buy my books and prints because they choose to for the subject, but I do feel there is an element of their feeling that at the same time they are ‘supporting’ me and I really like that. So the connections I try to make and foster are a part of that. It’s also how I like to be. The way I make and present my work is very much a reflection of myself so whilst I can see the potential advantage to setting yourself up on a pedestal, it’s just not for me.

Tell me about a couple of the most important images to you in the project.

I’ve never found it easy choosing any single image over others in my work. Some I can later on, as I discover the impact of the work on its audience more.

For now, there was a location in North Wales that was certainly the wildest conditions I have made work in. Not the coldest as I have worked in minus 22 in Ukraine, but wind so strong I had to brace myself before each small press of the shutter and so much horizontal rain, that I had to really work quickly as soon as I brought the camera out of my bag to my eye, knowing exactly where my frame needed to be, and back into the bag again. It was wild but I enjoyed it.
Luckily it was a location not too far from my car so I returned to dry off, found warmth in a cafe with best beans on toast I think I’ve ever had, and then walked back out to the location to make more work from a different perspective.

Were there any surprising discoveries whilst researching or exploring the landscape for this book?

I found how alone you can feel very quickly here in the UK. The time of year and weather I was purposefully walking into helped of course but I walked to and returned from the 60 plus locations, almost always without seeing another living soul. Sheep, horses, birds of prey yes but so few people. But this feeling only helped me in making the images I wanted to, allowing me to concentrate fully on the subject in front of me, my gaze not diverted by others, my concentration fully on each step I made and the history unfolding before me.

You can find out more about the project, and hopefully help raise money for it's publication, at its Kickstarter campaign.

Carl Linnaeus, Swedish biologist and physician known for being the "father of modern taxonomy", noted on his Öland expedition in 1741: “Öland is different - as soon as we have touched the beach, we noticed that this was totally different from the other Swedish provinces. The wide, flat and open landscape stretches to the distant horizon, which is marked by the Baltic Sea.”

Öland, which is my second home (the first one being Italy), is a narrow and long island joined to the city of Kalmar on the mainland by Europe's once longest bridge. The name Öland translates as “Island Land”, Ö being the Swedish word for island.

Around 26,000 people live there permanently. However, during summer months, the population multiplies drastically, with Swedish and foreign tourists descending on this summer destination.

Most of Öland's landmarks go back in history hundreds and thousands of years. The island contains several Viking burial grounds, and there are several primitive stone‐walled forts, the most noteworthy of which is Graborg in the middle of the island.

The northernmost tip of the island is characterised by the so called “Trollskogen”, the Enchanted Forest, a stand of pine woods, crossed by series of paths leading to white beaches, wild flowers and picnic clearings, but so far I haven’t seen any trolls…

The central part of Öland is home to the “Mittlandsskogen”, Europe's largest contiguous deciduous forest area below the mountain range and here is also Sweden's largest hazel forest.

However, my preferred photographic environment is located in the agricultural landscape of southern Öland, which is a living mixture of fields, characteristic linear villages, pastures and coastal areas. The area has a history of several thousand years. In fact, the ancestors of today´s farmers have made southern Öland to the UNESCO World Heritage Site it is today.

Probably the most typical agrarian monuments are the characteristic stone walls. The many kilometers of stone walls connect the history of several centuries. For more than 2000 years, the islanders have built stone walls into fences. It was not until after the middle of the 20th century that knowledge of the art of laying walls began to decline. With the walls disappearing, both a piece of Öland's history and part of the plant and animal life are at risk of vanishing.

Part of this southern landscape is the limestone steppe called “Stora Alvaret” (Great Alvar), a treeless plateau that is unique in Scandinavia. The plateau produces plant life uncharacteristic of Scandinavia. In spring, many different species of orchids bloom there, including “Ölandssolvända”, which has not been found anywhere else in the world.

The coastlands and coastal meadows still have today a unique continuity of use. For thousands of years, they have been used for or as haymaking, as is clearly reflected in both flora and fauna. The coastlands include several highly distinctive plant communities and are an important habitat for a great number of rare and vulnerable bird species. Often round shaped boulders and rocks shaped by past glacial times can be found in this open landscapes offering interesting photographic opportunities.

Finally, reaching Ottenby at the most southern tip of the island, the visitor may be surprised by a savannah type of landscape, with open grasslands and very sparse trees which sometimes remind the shape of the typical African Umbrella tree. In particular, this area is home to a large number of birds, and likewise, birdwatchers wandering around the various bird sanctuaries and the museum dedicated to birds and their migration.

For far more than a hundred years, researchers, artists, authors, bird watchers and other nature lovers have been attracted to Öland by the light, the unique nature and the richness of the birds. In a similar way, it is here where I have discovered my true photographic style. Inspired by this somehow minimalistic atmosphere, I try to capture the essential elements in the landscape and to communicate this great sense of peace and quietness through my images. Öland is a place for slow photography, almost meditative photography; it’s about space and time. It is here that I live my photography.

An old hymn still sung in the villages of the island records, “This is the fair land of summer, the island of wind and sun. . . .”

My Favourites

Snowstorm

Ölandsfåk is the characteristic snowstorm on the island of Öland in Sweden. The wind blows so strong that it seems to snow horizontally. Huge drifts of hard-packed snow form in wind shielded areas while the ground can be almost bare out in fields. There are many old stories about people who got lost and froze to death in this weather. I took this picture from a safe distance from my house. This is one of my favourite winterscape pictures I took on the island. I like the contrast between the typical stone wall in the foreground and the painting like background of the trees in the snowstorm. It has a dramatic atmosphere, but at the same time, it transmits a sense of peace and quietness.

Savanna

Öland’s savannah is the title of this image. Indeed, the southern tip of the island reminds one of the typical landscapes of Africa, with its open grasslands and sparse trees. This picture summarises three elements of the island which formed my photographic style; the big and often dramatic skies, minimalistic landscapes and birds (even if I’m not a particular bird photographer). It is somehow a meditative image.

Stoneway

The island of Öland is about slow photography. I really like to slow down and almost absorb the landscape before taking a picture. This image is an expression of this feeling. I entitled it “Stoneway to Heaven” due to the almost endless line of rocks which seem to touch the horizon. Also, often my image titles make reference to songs or compositions since music is another important part of my life, I both love listening to music and playing it myself.

Below the weirs at Gloucester, the movement of the tide on the River Severn reveals its powerful influence on the exposed riverbanks. With each ebb and flow, the landscape undergoes a subtle transformation as strong currents tirelessly shift mud, sand, and stones. This relentless movement crafts a dynamic topography, where the water meticulously sculpts the earth, carving out new shapes and contours. Debris briefly settles upon the banks, taking a moment to rest before the river, once again, sweeps it away on its continuous journey to new destinations.

I am a relative newcomer to landscape photography, having spent much of my career focusing on people and portraiture. My transition to landscapes has awakened a fascination for detail that I hadn’t previously recognised. In this series, I find myself drawn to the small, overlooked elements—square patches of riverbank no larger than a metre across, positioned directly beneath my tripod. These fragments distil the essence of the landscape into intimate compositions, revealing an elemental ecology that might otherwise go unnoticed. Finding the right patch requires a slow, deliberate walk, eyes scanning the ground ahead while ensuring I don’t leave a footprint in the wrong place and spoil the shot. This process has almost become an obsession for me–a treasure hunt for the next object, interesting pattern or shade of colour.

After The Tide began in 2020, initially as an offshoot of another project exploring the River Severn. It was the river’s tidal nature that captivated me—its twice-daily reversal of flow, carrying vast quantities of debris, both natural and human-made. The first time I witnessed an incoming tide, I was struck by the sight of huge trees drifting past at speed, like tall ships racing toward Gloucester—only to surge back out toward the sea hours later.

The river's many sandbanks serve as temporary resting places for some of these wayfaring objects, gently deposited and left until the next tide comes along. At Garden Cliff—a rapidly eroding wall of fossil-rich deposits on one of the river’s bends—this process is particularly visible. I’m captivated by how the Severn’s geology has formed into multi-coloured sandstone deposits; this fragile rock easily disintegrates, reshapes, and is washed away by the strong currents. The textures and shapes become integral to my compositions, with cracks in soft rock forming geometric patterns and asymmetric structures. Waves shape the sand into intricately flowing lines, and the occasional man-made object is a stark reminder of pollution and the fragility of the river’s ecology.

At 354 km, the River Severn is Britain's longest river, winding its serpentine route from the hills of Plymlimon in Wales to the Bristol Channel, gathering countless tributaries along the way. The estuary, stretching from Gloucester to the Second Severn Crossing, spans some 70 km, and it is here that the tide meets the outflow, creating the famous Severn Bore. This tidal wave—sometimes several metres in height—surges inland at speed, a challenge eagerly met by surfers who attempt to ride its advancing crest.

As anyone photographing in a dynamic environment will know, understanding the rhythms of nature is essential. This came to bear when I did not understand how the tide times affected the river. On my first walk along one of the exposed sandbanks, I had checked the tide tables and felt confident in my timing. Camera on tripod, bag heavy on my back, I was absorbed in composing a shot when I heard an ominous sound behind me—the unmistakable rush of water. I turned to see a wave, nearly a foot high, racing toward me. A clumsy, scrambling retreat up the riverbank saved me from being caught. It was only later, after some head-scratching, that I realised my mistake. At that location, the bore arrives a full hour before high tide. Now, I carry a bore calculator—and I’m far less inclined to venture onto the sands without careful planning.

Garden Cliff, in contrast, offers a more stable vantage point, where I can explore at low tide without the same immediate threat of rising water. These quieter moments—when the riverbed is most exposed—allow for a different kind of observation, one where I can take my time, fully immersed in the process. I’ve learned that creativity flourishes when I’m at ease with my surroundings, rather than battling against them.

This connection—the intense experience of being present in the landscape—has reshaped my approach to photography. It has made me realise that the final image is not the ultimate goal, but rather a record of the journey. The photograph becomes evidence, a trace of an experience that cannot be fully captured. This shift in perspective has changed how I see my own work. Perhaps it is a radical thought for a photographer as it changes the significance of our work and how we see it.

God the Father, on a visit to the Valais in the company of St. Peter, offered the Valaisans who complained about the retreat of the glaciers and the aridity of their climate, to take care of the problem of water if they wished. St. Peter saw that the locals were hesitating, and encouraged them to accept the offer, telling them that God himself was a Valaisan. Was it this remark that got them thinking? In any case, they declined and from then on the Valaisans had to make up for their lack of water themselves. ~Rose-Claire Schüle, 1995, Les bisses dans les récits traditionnels (my translation)¹

One of the fascinating things about the study of hydrology for me, as a hydrologist, is the long history of modification of natural sources of water by man. There are records of irrigation systems developed in China going back some 5000 years; there is the water supply system required for the Gardens of Babylon that appear in the Bible; there are the ancient underground canal systems in the middle east bringing water from the mountains to cities such as Tehran (called quanats in Iran, but also known in Iraq, Afghanistan and India); and the extensive aqueduct systems of the Roman Empire². The “bisses” of the Valais in Switzerland are not of the same order: they are small man-made water courses that were used to channel water from the heads of valleys around the slope for supplying water to villages and alpage pastures. Some are still in use today. They are quite variable in size, slope and construction but all represent an enormous effort by both the men and women of the communes involved to both create and maintain them over long periods of time³.

Indeed, one of the wonderful things about the mountains of Switzerland is the way in which humans have, over centuries, made use of a challenging - if beautiful - landscape. Swiss bergers or armaillis still take herds of sheep, goats and cows up into the alpage pastures in summer, even where the animals may still have to climb several hundred metres to alpages without road access. They still produce cheese from the milk even in places where it is still only possible to bring the cheese to market on the backs of mules (some of the very best Gruyère and Etivaz⁴ cheeses come from such alpages in the Cantons of Fribourg and Vaud). They still use some amazingly steep slopes for the production of hay for winter feed for the animals, sometimes so steep that that the hay is still collected by hand raking. It is certainly true that some alpine pastures and hayfields have fallen into disuse and are gradually being reclaimed by trees, even at high altitudes.  Despite all the new construction that is widespread throughout Switzerland it has one of the highest percentage reforestation rates in Europe.

But summers in Switzerland can be dry, and to maximise hay production and the number of cuts for winter feed that can be made, water is needed. This led to one of the most remarkable ways in which humans have modified the alpine landscape by the construction of the “bisses”, particularly in the Canton of Valais (or Wallis in Swiss German⁵). These channels bring water from a reliable summer supply (often glacier melt or a limestone spring source) to where it was needed, especially for the irrigation of hayfields, vegetable plots and vines. Without irrigation water, it has been estimated that the area has a water deficit of about 300 mm (or litres per square metre) over the summer.

Bisses are already documented in some of the first manuscripts surviving from the region in the 13th Century. The Valais historian Pierre Dubuis has put forward the hypothesis that up until the middle of the 14th century agriculture in the Valais was mainly producing cereals, which did not require irrigation. By 1350 the plague had decimated the local population, causing them to gradually abandon this type of cultivation. The agricultural land available was turned into pastures and hayfields which favoured the development of breeding livestock. The numbers of livestock increased dramatically and consequently the hayfields required extensive irrigation to produce the winter feed. One of those early channels, the Bisse de Riederi, which runs from Blaten to Ried-Morel near Naters, can be traced back to 1385 and was used until the 1940s.

Bisse de Riederi, near Naters, Valais c.1930⁶

The statistics describing the bisses of the Valais are impressive. The first comprehensive inventory was made by an engineer, Léopold Blotnitzki, in 1871 who found a total of 1536 km of constructed channels. A later survey by Fritz Rauchenstein in 1907 found 80 additional channels that had been constructed since 1870, and a total of 207 bisses with a length of 1400 km. A modern valley by valley inventory lists a total of 413 bisses⁷, with several of the tributary valleys having more than 20 listed. The longest listed is the Grand Bisse de Saxon at 29km which takes water from the Printse to serve the Communes of Nendaz, Isèrables, Riddes and Saxon and was constructed between 1863 and 1876. There are many others that are more than 10 km long.

This gives some idea of the scale of the Bisse network in the Valais. What it does not convey is the nature of the construction. In some places, this was relatively simple, a shallow channel, with shallow slope, more or less following the contours around the valley to where the water was needed, upslope of the fields. Given the steep nature of the terrain, however, this was not always possible – there were sheer rock cliffs and steep sided gulleys to traverse, while some sections would need to be protected from rock and snow avalanches. In many places, the channel was constructed of wood and attached to a cliff face. In others, it was necessary to dig tunnels through the rock. Later construction and modernisations also introduced some metal channels.

Thus, because of the sheer effort needed in building and maintaining the bisses they represent a communal activity, which required significant degrees of organisation and regulation to make sure they worked and that the water was distributed fairly. Documents of contracts and rules of operation (and conflicts) date back to the 15th Century. Several communes constructed bisses in the 1400s, a time when the numbers of cattle requiring winter feed was increasing. Later, of bisses where the date of construction is known, only 18 were built between 1500 and 1800. This is in part due to a change to a colder and wetter climate when the glaciers were generally advancing (the period of the “Little Ice Age”).

In the 19th Century, particularly after 1850, there was again an expansion partly due to rewarming and partly due to an expansion of meat and cheese products with the arrival of the railway in the Valais, opening up new markets. In the early 20th Century there was again an expansion and a policy of modernisation, including some subsidies from the Government, with projects to replace some of the more spectacular cliff transversing wooden channels with tunnels. The spectacular Bisse du Torrent Neuf, with a tunnel through the cliffs of Prabé near to Savièse, dates from this time.”

However, the special nature of the bisses was recognised in 2023 in the listing by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage Site. This was preceded by some investment to create safe access for tourists to some of the more spectacular sites, such as the Bisse du Torrent Neuf and Bisse du Rho, including the construction of walkways and suspension bridges to allow the routes of those bisses to be followed more easily. Not all the bisses still carry water, or only along parts of their length, but many can be walked as there was always access alongside or over the channel to allow for maintenance and control of the distribution channels.

Some are more exposed than others, while those hanging from cliffs that have not been maintained can be downright dangerous (though for spectacular exposure try the Circuit of the 3 Bisses near Vercorin⁷ or the Bisse des Sarrasins south of Sierre⁸). Some of the old photographs showing men – and women – working on maintenance on the highly exposed sections are really rather scary.Some have been replaced with pipes to minimise the maintenance necessary. Some have simply not been maintained and run dry. There is a fascinating Bisse Museum in the village of Botyre not far from the Bisse d’Ayant and a web site with a map of the bisse networks and suggestions for walks along them⁹.

Bisse maintenance, Bisse de Rho (Ro, Luyton or Lyston), Montana, Valais¹⁰

Suspended section of the Bisse du Rho, Montana, Valais

I have now walked many kilometres along different bisses (though not the most exposed….). They are always interesting in that they differ a lot in their characteristics (even along the length of a single bisse).

This is partly because of the fact that the flow is often relatively shallow so there can be reflected light from different coloured rocks (or, in places, wood or metal) on the bed, partly because of caustics due to refraction within the waves at the surface and reflections from the bed , and partly because they often run through trees so that there can be interesting patterns of light and shade on the surface. There can also be steeper waterfall-like sections where it was necessary to lose elevation along the route (such as in the Bisse du Petit Ruisseau near Champex-Lac below). As always, the challenge is to find a good composition with the light at hand.

Les Bisses de Rho, du Petit Ruisseau, de la Tour

Le Bisse Vieux and Bisse de l’Ayant

The images that follow are a small selection of those taken in different bisses in recent years using a variety of techniques.

Bisse du Petit Ruisseau, Champex-Lac, Valais, Switzerland, 2024

Bisse d’Ayant, Anzère, Valais, Switzerland 2022

Bisse Vieux, Nendaz, Valais, Switzerland, 2020

References

1. Rose-Claire Schüle, 1995, Les bisses dans les récits traditionnels, in: Annales valaisannes : bulletin trimestriel de la Société d'histoire du Valais romand, 1995, p. 341-350
2. One of the interesting things about the Roman Aqueducts is that they are reported to have been designed without taking account of the velocity of the water in estimating their capacity, based on the contemporary writings of Vitruvius. While that is quite possible based on a history of engineering experience if the slope of the aqueduct is maintained at a standard value and if the lining does not vary too much in roughness, it does seem somewhat unlikely however given the all too obvious variations in velocity in natural rivers.
3. More information about many of the bisses and suggestions for walking routes can be found (in English) at https://www.les-bisses-du-valais.ch/en/ (also available as a phone app). There are also books available such as Balades le long des bisses du valais by Gilbert Rouvinez, 180° Editions, 2020 (in French). There is an Association des Bisses du Valais with a site at https://bisses-encyclo.ch/association/ (in French).
4. Etivaz cheese has an interesting history. In the 1930s, a group of 76 farming families producing Gruyère cheese in the vicinity of the village of Etivaz decided that government regulations were allowing cheesemakers to compromise the qualities that made good Gruyère so special. They withdrew from the Swiss government's Gruyère program, and started to call their own cheese, L'Etivaz. They founded a cooperative in 1932, and the first cheese cellars were built in 1934. A recent attempt to protect the name of Gruyère cheese to the valleys in Switzerland where it is produced failed in the United States where the term was held to be “generic” so that US produced cheese can also be called Gruyère.
5. Valais consists of nearly all of the valley of the Rhone upstream of Lake Geneva (Lac Leman). The lower part of the valley is French speaking, the upper part, above Sierre, German speaking). The name bisses is mostly used in the central part of the valley; in the lower part the name “raie” is more common, and “suonen” or “wasserleite” in the upper Valais. Bisse appears to derive from patois variants on the word “bief”, a leet in English, and has been used since at least 1569. Similar irrigation systems are found in parts of France and Italy. In the Val d’Aoste they are known as “rus”.
6. Gerber and Papilloud, op.cit.
7. see https://www.vercorin.ch/en/P116454/things-to-see-and-do/circuit-of-the-3-bisses
8. See https://www.vercorin.ch/en/V3881/things-to-see-and-do/in-summer-and-in-autumn/bisse-des-sarrasins
9. See https://www.les-bisses-du-valais.ch/fr/
10. See https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2019/01/physics-of-caustic-light-in-water/

Fank: Fang (Scottish Gaelic): sheepfold; sheep pen; stell; stall; turf stell; bucht; stell enclosure.

Fangan is an ongoing work recording the stone-built fanks of Mull, Iona, and the surrounding islands.

A fank is a structure in which to pen and handle sheep. The size of a fank usually reflects the number of sheep in a hirsel*.

Glen Cannel

It is early March, and having unloaded our quad bike from the trailer, we start following Jamie up the glen. It is bitterly cold, and the clouds threaten snow. The track follows along the side of Loch Bà, (Loch of the Cattle) and then, leaving the loch behind, winds its way along the bottom of the glen to the ruined farmhouse at Gortenbuie, last lived in in 1947. We stop to admire the view and just listen; the shrill call of a Curlew cuts through the silence.

From there, we head across the glen to the other side of the river. This is an ever changing river bed, its route forged over millennia by extreme volumes of water coming down from the surrounding mountains.

This fank has the largest gathering pen of any on the island, and can hold a lot of sheep. There is a cottage (now ruined) along one of the fank walls. Jamie’s family last used the fank in the 1980s. Now they walk the sheep from here down to the farm, five miles away.

Glen Cannel

Glen Cannel has a dark history like so many island glens. In the 1820’s the landowner instructed his factor to evict every family from their homes. There is no trace left of their houses.

The fank was built on the site of the Glen Cannel burial ground, and gravestones were used in the building of the fank walls.

Descendants of some of these families still live on the island. They hold the story of what happened to their families, an oral history handed down through the generations.

In the 1830’s Mull had a population of around 10,000. By the 1880’s it was less than 4,000. What happened in between was a harrowing period of great suffering and adversity. The islands experienced ten years of potato famine, the collapse of the kelp industry, and the Clearances. During this time, thousands of men, women, and children were removed, often forcibly, from their homes and transported across the world or relocated locally against their will.

Dhiseig

The Project

During lockdown, I was asked by the curator at An Tobar, a community art space in Tobermory, if I would show some of my drone photographs to accompany a textiles exhibition. Around the same time, I began photographing my neighbour’s fank; he was retiring, ending a several-generations family connection with the farm. It felt like a significant chapter in island farming was coming to a close.

Having photographed one fank, I began to look for more. I have lived on the island for 30 years, and being married to a farmer, I already knew where a few of them were.

However, I had no idea how many were still in use. I used the OS map to locate fanks all over the island, looking for the words Sheepfold or Sheepwash. Local knowledge was extremely helpful - one family farming a large area in the south of the island pinned twelve fanks on a Google Map for me, I have recorded 6 or so of those so far. Some are sited close to the road, with easy access. Others are several miles or hours walk from the nearest vehicle access.

When I started recording the fanks, I hadn’t made the connection between them and the Clearances. It wasn’t until I flew the drone over an unnamed fank on Lagganulva Farm a few months later that I fully understood this. I could see the shadowy impressions in the ground around the fank, of what had been houses. The stone from their walls had become the fine drystone walls of the fank.

Unnamed fank at Lagganulva

Ensay

For many years, my husband ‘neighboured’ here. A team of family members and neighbours would help to gather the hills and work in the fank; health-checking the animals, dosing, dipping, sorting lambs for sale – different tasks according to the time of year. He remembers long days working within the chest-high stone fank walls in hot sun, cold wind, and rain; hours of hard physical work, but also hours of companionship and beautifully told island stories, drawing pictures of those who had gone before and the way things used to be.

Days punctuated by generous lunches in the farmhouse kitchen, and teas in the fank with chocolate cake. And afterwards drams to mark the work done, and more food, more stories.

Ensay

Glac Gugairidh

Glac Gugairidh is a ruined settlement near where I live, and our neighbour told me how once the people had left the village, the walls of their ruined homes were incorporated to create a fank.

I have now recorded over fifty fanks on Mull, and three on Iona, with more still to do.

Fangan - the exhibition

Fangan has been exhibited in An Tobar (Isle of Mull), Edinburgh, West Kilbride, and Inverness.

I took Fangan to the local Mull agricultural shows in the hope that I would reach more folk than might visit An Tobar. I talked to farmers and crofters whose ancestors were removed from Glen Cannel. I talked to farmers who remember working in fanks, now disused, all over the island.

It has been good to show the work to a variety of audiences and for the photographs to have been received with interest. I realise that whilst the fanks make beautiful images, without explanatory words, the significance of their existence is not informed by the photographs themselves.

These are stories that should not be forgotten, so my next step is to create a book to present the fanks themselves and the stories connected with them.

Fangan is on display in Xoko, Bridge Street, Inverness, until the end of May, closed Mondays.

*Hirsel – the land grazed by a particular flock of sheep.

The balance between portability, quality and function has always been difficult when working away from motorised transport. Typically, I have reached for the 35mm based mirrorless system when portability was the most important aspect; but the introduction of the latest Hasselblad CFV 100C / 907X and the newer ‘V’ and ‘P’ lenses enables a way to go small without compromise. This short article comes from a week long trip to the island of Eigg in Scotland where walking is the only mode of transport for visitors, and the CFV 100C / 907X combination came into its own.

Background – Journey to the CFV 100C

Over the years, most of my landscape work has been done with 5x4 cameras and sheet film. The migration to digital became affordably compelling with the introduction of the Sony A7R, and since then, I have pottered about with most of the genres as the manufacturers leapfrogged with new technology. There was (and still is) something fascinating about the larger formats and the ability to use technical cameras for considered landscape work. I retain a technical camera system with a range of lenses for use only with a digital back (DB). This was my expectation and primary intended use for the CFV 100C. Not the most portable though… which brings me back to Eigg.

The CFV 100C has a unique solution when hitched to the included 907X camera body. The combination of this, the CFV 100C and the newer tiny (ish) ‘V’ and ‘P’ lenses makes for a very compact and incredibly portable system. For those with long memories, it is similar in size and form to the legendary Hasselblad SWC (super wide) camera. Added benefits come in the ability to downscale all the peripheral gear you need like the tripod, the head, the bag and if necessary, the filter system.

Comfort in the field has a huge impact on how I approach taking pictures and has a direct consequence on the quality of the images I produce. Having been to Eigg before, I knew that I would not need any long lenses, so travelled with the 28mm P, the 38mm V and the 65mm (which I never used), leaving the technical camera and 90mm lens at home

About Eigg

Eigg is interesting on so many levels with a unique island atmosphere. The geology is fascinating, with remarkable Jurassic strata and a violent volcanic past, which is laid bare in the landscape. The most obvious feature is the distinctive Sgurr, which is pitchstone from lava flows, and not a volcanic plug as most assume. There are obvious volcanic features all over the Island with dykes crisscrossing the beaches and cliffs and great terraces of basalt. All the while, you can see and feel the menace of the ancient volcanoes responsible for the incredible forces that tore this land apart and formed Skye and Rum, which is ever present to the west.

Dyke swarm punched through Jurassic Sandstone on Laig Beach. 28mm P 1.4sec @ F16

The CFV 100C & 907X

The combination of CFV100C and 907X makes a very basic box camera. It is easier to write a list of things it doesn’t do, rather than what it has as a feature set. But it has some important technical components.

The sensor is Back Side Illuminated (BSI), which means that it is quite close to gapless in design, so the issues of colour casts suffered by the previous generation have largely been removed. This applies mostly when using it as a digital back for a technical camera. But other wide angle lenses, where the rear element is very close to the sensor, could give a magenta cast in the corners with the previous model. Hasselblad’s latest 28mm is an example of a lens that exhibited purple corner shading issues with the earlier 50mp series camera. Previously, a Lens Cast Calibration filter was required with any Schneider or Rodenstock lenses of 50mm focal length or wider.

The diminutive 907X camera body gives auto-focusing, and has good face detection taking advantage of Phase Detect Auto Focus (PDAF) on the sensor. This does make the AF quick and reliable. But it can introduce a problem that Hasselblad are yet to effectively solve, whereby the PDAF array can provoke lines that appear with some wide-angle lenses. This is particularly true with the more symmetric optics like the Schneider 47/35mm lenses, and to a lesser extent with the slightly telecentric designed Rodenstock 40mm and wider lenses. The PDAF array is slightly raised from the sensor and the ‘shadow’ causes the lines. It is not unique to Hasselblad, and most manufacturers had this issue when first moving to the BSI sensor. They have addressed the problem through firmware. In practical use, I have not been bothered by it, as it requires extremes of post processing to be noticeable, and then only on large areas of plain tone or colour (like blue sky).

Bay of Laig. Stitch with 38mm. 8sec @ F16

A dyke pie crust on Singing Sands 38mm 1/8th sec @ F16

The 907X is shutterless, so either a lens has to have a shutter (nearly all Hasselblad lenses have one) that can be triggered by the camera or you may rely on the Electronic Shutter to take pictures. One of the difficulties of 100 megapixels is the amount of data that has to be moved off the chip at the time of exposure. Apart from the latest Global shutters, which read data in one go, current chips read off data line by line. If using the electronic shutter then the amount of time to read the whole chip can mean that the movement of any object may be distorted (rolling shutter). The Electronic Shutter in the CFV 100C has a fast enough readout that this is rarely an issue in landscape use, especially in 14 bit rather than 16bit mode where the readout is quite a bit slower. This is an essential feature allowing the use of shutterless lenses with the back, for example, when using a technical camera.

For storage, a 1TB SSD is built into the back with a secondary back up CFexpress type B slot, and this completes the important technical components.

On top of the tech is a very simple User Interface easily managed via a good-sized responsive touch screen which works well. The screen is good enough even in bright light, and hinges upwards so the screen acts as a waist level finder, as per the Hasselblad 500 series film cameras.

Bay of Laig - 38mm 4sec @ F22

What doesn’t it have?

Well, this may sound negative, but in reality, the features it has are designed for the purpose intended, nothing more, nothing less. If you want/need things on this following list then it is the wrong camera for you.

IBIS: (lack of)

In many ways the biggest drawback. Hasselblad lenses do not have OIS either, so with 100mp of detail my keeper rate, handheld, dropped alarmingly with the CFV 100C + 907x combination. I am quite comfortable handholding with IBIS and wide/normal lenses at 1/10th of a second, expecting a reasonable hit rate on the Hasselblad X2D, or Fujifilm GFX 100S (previously owned). With the 907X I find a shutter speed that is 1/focal length, as per the old maxim, is a fair low limit for handholding.

AF-C/AF Tracking: (lack of)

You aren’t going to use this camera for moving subjects.

Joystick: (lack of)

This has become standard on the majority of higher end cameras (but the X2D doesn’t have one either). It can be added to the 907x with the optional grip, but then the stability on a tripod is compromised due to a very thin connection to the plate. The touchscreen is excellent and easy to use so for tripod use this not an issue except perhaps in climatic conditions where your fingers do not operate the ‘touch’.

Screen angle

This may feel quite minor, but what does somewhat affect useability in the field is the screen angle: The design of the back is close to the original film magazine of the 500 series cameras. It is beautiful but… the screen slopes, and hinges in one direction only. This is perfectly fine if you only shoot in landscape format, or use it on a 500 series or shoot square format. As soon as you shoot portrait then it becomes quite disorienting. I am not the only one to find it much harder to compose because the angle of the screen leaves you looking in a different direction to the one you expect. A fully articulating screen could solve this.

Storm over Rum. 38mm 0.3sec @ F16

Tripod solutions

Before going into the field, the biggest problem to solve has been effective and secure coupling of a tripod plate. The 907X is very thin, and although it does have an indent to prevent rotation of the plate there are a very limited number that have the pin in the right place. Arca Swiss have a plate that is for “Classic Leica R” that is secure but ergonomically poor, not matching the camera profile. The best solution is the MC-LS Universal ‘L’ bracket from Really Right Stuff. Elegant and neat, it could have been made for the camera, and it also fits the X2D perfectly.

Lens Choices

Hasselblad is gradually migrating away from the older style XCD lenses with the newer ‘P’ (Pancake) , ‘V’ (Versatile) and ‘E’ (Exclusive) series. My experience with the new and old lenses is that there is not a bad lens in the bunch, and choice can be made based on the focal length you need. Zoom lenses are limited to older series 35-75mm and newer 20-35mm E series. Long lenses are limited to 120mm Macro and 135mm with matched 1.7x converter. I am comfortable using these lenses stopped down to f/22 as needed for Depth Of Field, despite conventional wisdom suggesting that images should be severely degraded by diffraction.

Personally, I own 25, 38, 55 and 90mm ‘V’ lenses, have owned the 28mm ‘P’, which I replaced with the 25mm; and have tested the 35-75mm XCD.

My most used lens is the 38mm. It is a compact high-quality package. There is a little bit of field curvature to watch out for when focusing, and a tendency to flare a little more than other lenses I have used.

A selection from the more compact 28P/38/45P/55/75P best complement the size and form of the 907x. The 25mm and 90mm V lenses produced some of the finest images I have made, but they are quite large, especially the 25mm vs the 28mm. The 25mm has proved its worth for Aurora work.

Adapted lenses from 6x4.5/6x6/6x7 film era cameras generally work well, but are not compact. Most are now quite aged, and finding a good copy of a well-regarded lens can be challenging.

The Sgurr across the Bay of Laig. 38mm 0.3sec @ F16

Image Quality & Development

I am including these together because there is a lot of debate about how to get the best from the Hasselblad Natural Colour System (HNCS). Like Phase One and its relationship with Capture One it is designed to produce best results from the (in house) remarkably similar-looking Phocus software. You cannot use Capture One with Hasselblad files.

Personally, I have been a Lightroom user for years and am comfortable that I get good results from it. I have done my own comparisons and the power of the additional features in LR far outweigh the small quality or colour differences I thought I could see. The only footnote to that is that LR ‘Camera Standard’ profile is rated as the closest in colour presentation to Phocus. I also use extensively the Tony Kuyper Linear profiles for the Hasselblad cameras with good effect. For images I cannot get quite right in Lightroom I will go to Phocus for initial development before exporting to a .tiff for polishing and cataloguing in Lightroom.

Auto White Balance is uncannily accurate in my opinion, and I almost never have to modify it except to taste. The colours are natural, and greens well handled.

The files from the Hasselblad 100mp sensor and developed in Lightroom are the ‘best’ to my taste from any camera system I have used.

Rum at Sunrise. 38mm 1.4sec @ F16

Summary

I have been using the digital backs in both 50 and 100 variants for an extended period. The 907X remains probably my favourite landscape tool if I am not chasing the light; the simplicity and balance works well for me. It needs to be used on a tripod. The small jewel like lenses are a joy to use, especially the ‘v’ variants with the clutch to manual focus.

After several trips where I tried to double duty the 907X as a handheld camera I felt the keeper rate was too low and I complemented it with an X2D. Same wonderful quality, but hand-holdable due to the excellent IBIS.