A small group of young people hang out on one of the sunny lawns between the allées of trees, while another visitor stretches out for a nap.

Amidst the seemingly endless sprawl of concrete and asphalt that comprises Mexico City's landscape, there is a place where you can sit in a tree-rimmed meadow and listen to the morning calls of robins and warblers, the hammer of a woodpecker and the gentle thrum of the hummingbird. Viveros is a 96-acre park located in the southern municipality of Coyoacán, a vital green space in the heart of one of the world's greatest conurbations. I have spent many pleasant hours wandering around its expansive grounds, taking advantage of the shade and oxygen provided by the thousands of trees.

Viveros was founded and designed by the urban planner Miguel Angel de Quevado (1862-1946). Born in Mexico and raised in France, Quevado received his Bachelor of Science at the University of Bordeaux, then studied civil engineering and hydrology at the École Polytechnique in Paris. He returned to Mexico City in 1887 and worked in a variety of jobs, including as Director of Public Works and later as a high ranking official in the Secretariat of Agriculture, where he oversaw arboreal research and management. He founded the Central Committee of Forests and Tree Areas, which was the first environmental protection institution in Mexico.

Statue of Miguel Angel de Quevado, the "Apostle of the Trees," greets visitors at the southwest gate of Viveros.

Quevado was part of a generation of wealthy, highly paternalistic urban reformers who believed in a direct correspondence between environment and behaviour, and that to modify the quality of one is to modify the other. To this end, they imagined that improving the physical conditions of housing, sanitation, and overcrowding would result in a more hygienic, productive, and well behaved population. Despite this moralistic vision, reformers racked up important achievements such as new social housing, a greatly extended sewer system, and parks and open spaces.

In 1901, Quevado donated the first hectare of land to what would become Viveros ("The nurseries") out of his own property. Over the next twenty years, the park grew through purchases of adjacent hacienda land. The municipal administration recognized Viveros in 1917, and in 1936, the federal government declared it a National Park. It also became home to several government institutions, including the National Forest Research Institute, the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources, and the Secretariat for Public Works and Urban Development.

Evergreen saplings in starter pods at the Viveros tree nursery. When they are ready, crews will transfer them to parks, playgrounds, and street tree pits throughout the city.

Today, Viveros remains the city's principal tree nursery. Large areas are set aside for seedlings and saplings, which can be transplanted into parks, playgrounds, schoolyards, sidewalks, and restoration projects across the metropolis. There are also numerous allées of mature trees grouped by species, including sweetgum, ash, cedar, Chinese elm, jacaranda, acacia, pears, and various pines and eucalyptus. Such a diversity of trees, with their varied heights and structures, make Viveros a rich bird habitat and a major destination for bird watchers in the city.

An allée of white cedar trees with their long soft needles and gnarled trunks, on the north side of Viveros.

In addition to the arboreal sections, areas are devoted to arid and semi-arid plants, with a large collection of cacti and succulents from the surrounding Valley of Mexico. These species are adapted to the saline conditions of Mexico City's soil, as well as to its high altitude and oscillating wet/dry seasons. There are also plants that thrive in the various pedregals- stony landscapes of basalt laid down through successive volcanic eruptions over time. Rounding out the arid and semi-arid section are species common to Oaxaca, Puebla, Chiapas, Vera Cruz, and other states.

The semi-arid section includes blue agave, nopal, barrel cactus, and many other species important to Mexican ecology and culture.

Finally, the entire park is intersected with and encircled by pathways. Even with 2500 to 3000 visitors daily, the park seldom feels crowded as people fan out across the paths, meadows, lawns, playgrounds, and shady seating areas. Runners can use the peripheral path, while others can walk leisurely among the allées between the trees. A large workout station anchors the southeast side, along with playgrounds and basketball courts. At the centre of the park is a bullfighting practice ring where young toreadors train and perfect their craft. There are also areas dedicated to spiritual and religious practice, including a lawn for Tai Chi, an outdoor Buddhist temple and meditation ground, and a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe mounted to a tree.

The great oval at the centre of Viveros is home to a toreador school, and park visitors can watch students and teachers practice their craft.

The sanctuary for health an iron grill decorated with white lilies, where parkgoers can pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe for health and healing.

At the northeast corner of the park is a large and popular Mercado de Plantas, a gardening centre with numerous vendors selling seeds, seedlings, flowers, pots, statuary, equipment, soil and fertilizer. The centre maintains a large display of botanical species, especially of flowering plants and a herbarium for cooks and healers. Every year at Christmas the center hosts a manger diorama competition, with elaborate scenes recreating the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

One of a dozen entries in the annual Christmas competition that features elaborate dioramas depicting the birth of Jesus, blending Biblical and folk stories.

Weekends find the park packed with people from the surrounding neighbourhoods of Florida, Axotla, San Ángel, Del Carmen, Santa Catarina, and Xoco. Adding to their numbers are visitors from more distant areas of the city drawn to the calm green landscape and varied activities on offer at Viveros. In addition to visiting the playgrounds and workout stations or watching the toreadors at practice in the central oval, parkgoers can enjoy weekend events such as art festivals, concerts, and plays.

Weekdays bring a different rhythm to the park. Runners, joggers, and bird watchers stream into Viveros as early as 6am when staff open the gates. By mid-morning, the traffic noise from the six-lane Avenida Universidad crescendos along the western edge of the park. Most of the joggers have cleared out, and the playgrounds fill with pre-school children. As 1pm approaches, workers from surrounding areas begin filing into the park to eat packed lunches, followed in the 3-4pm range by small groups of high school kids who use the park to cut through or to hang out after the last bell. Families stroll into and out of the park from 4-6pm, imbibing ice cream, paletas, and snacks from the many vendors that cluster around the gates. Finally, at 6pm, the gates close and staff usher people out for the night.

Early morning visitors cross paths in the southwest part of Viveros.

Families enjoy a later afternoon stroll along one of the principal east-west paths in Viveros.

Despite its origins in a paternalistic middle class vision of a conflict free urban future, Viveros today is one of the world's great urban parks and a crucial breath of life for Mexico City. Its trees not only take in tons of carbon dioxide and return oxygen, but they also metabolise pollution, reduce surface temperature, slow rainwater infiltration, and shade the world. The trunks, branches, roots, and canopy also provide interlacing habitat for diverse species of mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, and fungi.

A culture is no better than its woods.~W.H.Auden

During an excursion through the Taunus mountains, I passed through one of the many beech woods that cover the mountains. It was a cold winter's day, shrouded in a low layer of clouds that gave the landscape a deep purple colour, and the thin layer of snow that had fallen the night before was barely visible.

In this somber and melancholy landscape, the silent beeches rose black as the skeletons of a cathedral in ruins. My boots splashed through the thick mixture of snow and mud on the road, and I heard the echoes of a few creaking noises that softly broke the silence around me. I looked towards the tops of the trees and saw that they were swaying restlessly, getting closer and then moving away.

I was apprehensive, remembering some scientific article that explained that trees are capable of communicating with each other and reacting collectively to threats and aggressions from their surroundings. At that moment, I thought that the beeches, like a herd alarmed by a threat, were shifting nervously, warning each other of the presence of a danger, which was none other than myself, a human being – the species responsible for centuries of mass destruction of the woods – who was entering their territory. Small and alone as I was, I was anguished at being seen as a danger by the trees.

My relationship with the Earth has changed substantially over the years – due, among other things, to my love for landscape photography –and since that excursion, my relationship with trees has changed even more.

Science has contributed knowledge about the sensitivity and intelligence of the different living beings on Earth. While in the 1970s, I was sceptical about the assumption that talking to plants helped them grow more healthily. Today, I talk to them while watering them, just in case.

So, when I go on an excursion to take photos, in order not to cause any fear among the trees – real or imaginary, who knows – as I thought I had done on that winter excursion when I enter a wood, I usually murmur a greeting, whistle in reply to birdsong and, from time to time, rest the palms of my hands on the rough bark of an oak or elm, on the smooth bark of a beech or poplar, or on the fascinating bark of a birch tree.

In short, rites of peace, rites of concord between species. Perhaps Claude Lévi-Strauss was right when he wrote, “It is therefore better, instead of contrasting magic and science, to compare them as two parallel modes of acquiring knowledge.”

Once the trees have been warned that I come in peace, I walk quietly and with a certain reverence among these still, silent beings, and I try to capture their beauty, harmony and dignity with the camera as they appear before me. I cannot avoid a tendency to romanticise them, as suggested by Novalis when claiming that the world had to be romanticised, “giving the ordinary a superior meaning, the vulgar a mysterious aspect, the known the dignity of the unknown, the finite an infinite appearance.”

I like to go on these photographic excursions where the trees live, especially in autumn and winter, when the fog and snow take over; I enjoy the silence and the light, whether I am taking photos or not. And like the trees, I have the patience necessary to enjoy their company. But, despite everything, I can't help returning from each excursion with a certain elegiac feeling.

Snow and Fog

On days when the landscape is covered in mist and snow, I prefer to walk around the edges of the woods rather than go into them.

These border spaces constitute, in these circumstances, a dual, ambiguous, inert world. On the one hand, the veiled shadow of the forest huddled together like a fearful herd; on the other, the tide of imprecision that runs through the landscape, greatly simplified, now revealing and now hiding the shadows of solitary trees. We will never know if they were dissenters and heterodox trees expelled from the forest or hermits and anchorites that sought another life in those translucent spaces.

Silence

Walking aimlessly through these woods, sometimes, very occasionally, one has magical, almost metaphysical encounters with arcane totems: the still-upright trunk of a dead tree in a corner of a clearing, suspended in the middle of a gesture whose meaning we do not know; a broken, twisted tree, embalmed with mosses and lichens, already oblivious to the life that continues around it; a tree in a shady corner lying on a mound of fallen leaves, as if waiting with infinite patience for the mourners at its funeral.
In those encounters, silence becomes a feeling that invades and overwhelms us.

Light

During the winter, the trees and woods plunge into a shadowy, distant, silent state. Not even the snowfalls – scarcer and scarcer each year – manage to give the forest a less gloomy appearance.

Sometimes, however, there are moments of revelation. The forest becomes the mirage of a fantastic Gothic cathedral. Beech, oak, birch and spruce trees become sharply outlined columns that ascend vertiginously to support with their branches – for a few moments vaulted ribs and arches – a dome of weightless, diffuse light.

In these brief moments, the light reverberates between the trees, and the passage of time is suspended in the midst of a serene silence. And in the most remote corners of the forest, there are glimpses of chapels that house sylvan idols, whose meaning we do not know.

Patience

From time to time, on excursions, I come across specimens of huge trees. Although their shapes are very different, depending on the type of tree, whether beech, oak, chestnut, pine or spruce, their bearing is truly impressive. When I look at those very tall trees, which are venerable, old and enormous and have branches that give them the appearance of fantastic beings, I think of Hermann Hesse's words about patience, the passage of time and silence: all development, all the beauty of the world needs time, and is based on patience and silence.

Elegy

Sometimes I walk through landscapes traversed by a breath of despair, in which time and space swirl in phantasmagorical whirlwinds that are barely perceptible and must be the timeless gazes of the lost souls of the trees that inhabited those landscapes, agitated and in pain because of what those landscapes were, and are no longer.

Translated from Spanish by Catherine Ann Ryan

I first visited Mewslade Bay on the southwest corner of the Gower 28 years ago in 1995 whilst on a family holiday. I noted its great potential for me to photograph and planned to return as soon as possible with just my camera. I’d recently taken the big step of moving from 35mm slides to large format 5x4 black and white film photography and was keen to explore this new location.

I’ve been a keen photographer since the age of 16 when my parents bought me a Vöitlander Vito B to take on a school trip. It was with me throughout school and university. In 1973, I joined ILFORD in the production and engineering department. During my 13 years with ILFORD, my photography interest grew using first an OM1 and then an OM4 camera. My job had no direct involvement with photography but it was a real perk to be able to use the company’s products and darkrooms - for free! It was some 8 years after leaving ILFORD that I finally took the plunge into large format, and that was my preferred way of working for about the next 18 years when digital capture finally took over. Certain aspects of digital grabbed my attention much earlier in that I soon took to scanning my negatives, processing in Photoshop and printing with ink.

During the 10 years or so after my first visit to Mewslade, I returned with my 5x4 about 7 or 8 times, each for one day visits. The sandy bay is barely 500 yards wide at low tide, and the beach is inaccessible on either side of high tide. It is, therefore, important to plan a visit using tide tables otherwise, there’s potential disappointment. It’s best to be there during spring tides (large tidal coefficient) which is when the tide goes out the farthest and allows brief access to some small areas at the west of the bay that are otherwise inaccessible. Beware not to be stranded as the tide comes in!

During my early visits, I was preoccupied with photographing the vistas, views and scenes afforded by the beach with protruding rocks, the cliffs and the sea, which offered much variety and material to create compositions. The bay faces almost due south, so it is sunlit (when it shines!) throughout the day. As my photography progressed, I became increasingly drawn to what we now call “intimate landscapes”.

I submitted a set of images to Roger Maile’s Creative Monochrome / PhotoArt International (remember that?), which included two images from Mewslade and much to my delight, they were published in issue 30 in Oct/Nov 2002. I’ll refer back to a coincidence relating to this a little later!

Digital capture finally caught up with me in 2010, and on my occasional visits to Mewslade gave me the option of colour or monochrome. I now enjoy producing images in both colour and monochrome and find that my work ends up about 50:50.

I’ve been a member of the RPS for several years. Around the start of 2020, I began to think of applying for an RPS distinction and with a local photography friend, we arranged to attend a 1:1 review day where we could discuss our ideas and candidates for consideration. I’d thought carefully about whether to try for an LRPS but eventually realised that I’d prefer to focus on my particular area of photographic interest, landscape, which starts at the ARPS level. Shortly before the review day, COVID arrived, and the review was cancelled, putting paid to any ambition I’d had. My intention was to take to the review a set of monochrome landscape prints which I’d produced over a long period of time, all of which were vistas and panoramas, and all were taken from easily accessible locations, none requiring any strenuous hiking or overnight camping. I wanted to illustrate what is “there for all to see”.

Almost two years later, I arranged for an RPS 1:1 advisory session with Tony Worobiec, a member of the RPS Landscape Panel. This took place over Zoom in early May 2022 and was very helpful and instructive.

At this point, I decided to make one further trip to Mewslade to see if I could find a few more images to fill a couple of areas that I wanted to improve. I’m so pleased that I made that trip, as it resulted in my finding a few more candidate images.

I then embarked on some further refinements to improve the balance and cohesion of my panel, which also entailed making a couple of substitutes from my last trip as well as some rearrangements. And this became my submission. I printed my 15 monochrome images and mounted them on 500x400mm board, prepared my final Statement of Intent and a layout print of how the prints are to be displayed on assessment day. Whilst most of the 15 images were taken digitally in the last few years, one image was taken on 5x4 film about 25 years ago.

I personally delivered the whole package to the RPS in Bristol, preferring not to entrust my precious work to anyone else. This was done on 20th July 2022, just two days before I had knee replacement surgery. I had been working to a deadline! The assessment was scheduled for 14th September.

In addition to the delivery of the prints, it is a requirement to also provide the 15 images as digital files for the assessment panel to review personally in advance of the actual “in hand” assessment.

I’ve tried hard to put into words how cohesion and balance work and have found it almost impossible. It seems to be something that arises out of the repeating cycles of assembling and adjusting rather than a specific definable objective. I did find it very helpful to regularly stand well back from each candidate panel arrangement to the point where the individual images took a back seat to the overall impression that the arrangement made.

I attended the assessment day on Zoom. It was somewhat nerve-wracking to observe my work being discussed by the five highly regarded assessors. Joe Cornish chaired the assessment with Tony Worobiec, Tim Rudman, Paul Mitchell and Alex Nail. They had reviewed the digital images beforehand. A particularly positive comment was how the prints now seen in hand and examined carefully were far more satisfying than the first impressions made by viewing the digital versions on screen. And members expressed how good it was to see a panel of intimate landscapes printed in monochrome.

The coincidence referred to earlier is that in the issue of Creative Monochrome where there were 2 Mewslade and 7 other of my monochrome landscape images, there were also two articles written by my ARPS assessors Tony Worobiec and Tim Rudman! I know neither of them.

I’m occasionally asked what it means to have been awarded an ARPS. I suspect that I feel, like most who receive an award, that it is an acknowledgement from and recognition by fellow photographers for having achieved a significantly high level of competence and vision. Something to be very proud of.

Mewslade Bay: “Statement of Intent”

Over the course of 25 years, I’ve been taking photographs at Mewslade Bay on The Gower peninsula and at every visit, I find fresh interpretations and compositions.

For two hours, on either side of high tide, this small 500 metre wide bay is completely submerged. When the tide recedes, its varied and fascinating underwater landscape is revealed around the base of the steep cliffs. Remarkable rock sculptures and textured rocks are decorated with numerous patches of mussels and barnacles sitting above the few small rock pools and streams across the sand. The only significant landscape variable at this inspiring location is the light; the rocks and beach hardly change.

My panel is intended to show the fascinating variety of inspiring, intimate landscapes created by the sea along this short stretch of coast. Presenting Mewslade’s landscape in monochrome brings focus to the shapes, patterns and textures available for the creation of images.

RPS Special Interest Group

The Landscape Special Interest Group is dedicated to encouraging landscape photography and advancing the skills of its practitioners. Since its launch in 2016, the group has welcomed photographers of all levels, from beginners to experts, and offers a range of events, publications, and online platforms for members to share their work and collaborate with others. Find out more on their website.

I’ve always loved the sound of crows cawing. It has been suggested that they may even have their own language. Every Summer, when I was a small boy, rooks would nest in a tree in a neighbour’s garden. I would lie in bed listening to them talk and try to imagine what they were saying. Why make a noise at all? The sound of crows cawing remains incredibly comforting to me

Writing about work is such a strange thing to do, for me at least. Especially a few years after a series has been finished, made into a book and exhibited, etc. But at the same time, there is perhaps a clarity and focus afforded by the passage of time. At the beginning, the reasons for creation are always very intense and difficult. The ideas ebb and flow; there's confusion and self-doubt amongst other scatter-brained moments of bewilderment. But show me anyone who doesn't go through that process. I think it's inevitable; it's just some people hide it better than others. So, coming back to this work has been a rather enlightening experience for me.

There were numerous original reasons for making it, all interwoven with my life at the time, and while these reasons are still incredibly personal, I have found a little peace since then. A few people played a part in the creation of this work, albeit indirectly and not always in a positive way, however, their inclusion, while not immediately obvious in the photographs, is nonetheless there and, in a small sense, is a goodbye to them. We also had a global pandemic while I was making the work, plus the inevitable Brexit fallout.

Maybe I should talk a little about the work itself? I'm often asked what the white line is in some of the photographs. Life divided. We'll touch on this later on. It's actually a fold in a print of the work, which was subsequently rescanned for those of you who are interested. The handwritten notes that I included were usually attached to deflated balloons, which, thanks to a prevailing wind, seemed to make their way to where I made most of the work.

To begin with, I didn't connect the notes with the work I was making, I just started to collect them whenever I saw them (occasionally going to great lengths to remove them from high branches or generally difficult places. I still have scars but at the very least I picked up some litter). After a while, it became clear that the words in these notes were narrating the story as it was being made, so with some subtractions for sensitive words or names, I incorporated them into the series. They were mostly messages to passed loved ones, which fit almost too snugly with my own reasons for making the work in the first place.

So on we went, and it slowly became something tangible. Then, thanks to a few very kind people, it became a book, which I think is the perfect vehicle for the work. Making a book (and I've been lucky enough to do a few now) is such a strange process as it affords a full stop to making the work and the opportunity for other people to bring their own ideas and thoughts to bear upon it. I purposely didn't include any introductory text (there is some at the very back) because I didn't want to lead anyone or fill their heads with any preconceptions. I felt that was the very least I could do. And if I'm honest, this is probably my biggest 'Marmite' series to date. I realised a long time ago that I'm a Marmite photographer (you should see some of my direct messages), but then I've never quite fit anywhere in the photographic pantheon, or at least I've never felt like I've fit in anywhere. And I'd like to keep it that way. .

The 'birds' work started before the pandemic, then continued during (albeit in a limited fashion). While the world was starved of human contact, I honestly didn't find that aspect of it difficult. But solitude is always just a tiny stumble to loneliness. Anyway, it's all there in the work if you want to take a look. Of course, there were moments of pleasure and hope. I think the murmurations I was lucky enough to see really helped. I would go to a specific place at a specific time, and while it didn't always happen, even the starlings coming home to roost in groups was a pleasure to see. It became such a grounding experience amongst the chaos and uncertainty of life during a global pandemic. But life is always chaotic and uncertain. I think the biggest aspect of the 'birds' work is realising that fact and accepting it.

Someone much more poetic than I could ever be said, 'Loneliness is a great place to visit; just don't take any friends'. As photographers, we largely work alone, and I suspect while we're all looking for something different, there's more that unites us as a community than divides us. By and large, people are great, and I think, in simplistic terms, making photographs is simply a fantastic way to live life. To be privileged enough to show them to a wider audience in the form of a book is, for me at least, a pretty mind-bending experience. It's something I never thought for a second I would ever get to do. But there we go. There are a few copies left if you're interested. There should be a link knocking about somewhere.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, please keep them to yourselves. Ta.

These photographs were made in the boreal forest of Atikaki (land of the caribou), ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg First Nation. A remote wilderness region of the Canadian Shield, Atikaki stretches west from the border of Ontario and Manitoba to Lake Winnipeg and is accessible only by bush plane and canoe.

It is important, when speaking of ancestral lands, that we not speak in the past tense. Simply because these lands were colonised and taken does not mean they belong to those who took them. The descendants of the original people, the Anishinaabeg, remain connected to the land both culturally and, most especially, spiritually.

My journeys into the backcountry of Atikaki began with the intention of deepening my connection with myself, my wife and life partner, and with the natural world. As the years passed, I felt a need to share some of these experiences with others.

What I wanted to share was not that we should care for these places because of all they have to offer us – beauty, solitude, open sky and water, forest, and wildlife. Those reasons speak only to my wants and needs. But the true reason to care for these wild places is because they are life. And there is no other reason to care for life beyond the truth of its being. In care, more than mere observers of the world, we become co-creative participants. I don’t come to the boreal forest to be in nature but because I am nature.

In Anishinaabeg tradition, the world is perceived as animate. There is no such thing as “dumb” matter. All things in existence are ensouled. A shaman’s drum is not a mere object with which to perform. It lives, animated with consciousness of its own. The drum isn’t simply played; it is the enactment of a relationship so profound that it becomes impossible to tell if the shaman is playing the drum or if the drum is playing the shaman. And so, once I began to make photographs, it slowly dawned on me to embrace the possibility that my relationship with my camera might be like the shaman’s relationship with their drum.

In this way, photography becomes, for me like a portal into deep connection. I am not simply using the camera as an object to do my bidding but enter into a relationship with them which requires that I listen, not just to what I perceive but what the camera perceives. The camera’s eye and my own – two different ways of perceiving that inform each other and offer insight into the nature of the world that I alone could not know.

Some of the photographs shown here include images of petroglyphs that indicate a sacred relationship between the land and those that moved with it. The waterways of the boreal forest served then as now, as arteries that allow for a profoundly intimate relationship with the land. And while I have no direct lineage connection to the Anishinaabeg or any other First Nations people, in the years that my wife and I have paddled our canoe, portaged our packs, or made our camp to rest for the night, we were always stirred by the spirit of those people who had been here before us. It was that spirit which ever drew us to show care and respect for where we found ourselves.

Time is a chimaera, and in our journeys along these waterways, it was often difficult to tell not only where we were but when. And indeed, we were aware that some of the campsites we occupied and many of the portages we walked were used by the Anishinaabeg and others for centuries before us.

The world speaks if only I care to listen. Therefore, it is with great appreciation and an open heart that I offer my gratitude to the Original People, the spirit of the land, and all those who cherish it.

Grandfather Speaks

In the beginning.
Before the coming of those that walk, swim, fly, or crawl there was Grandfather.
Before the stationary ones, the trees and plants that grow and even before the soil that nourishes them,
Four and a half billion years ago, at the beginning of time, there was Grandfather.

Grandfather is about creation.
In Grandfather we can see that creation did not happen sometime in the distant past
but is only this; the ever-unfolding now.
They teach us what it is to be: ever-changing and always the same – life is patience.
Neither drama nor performance, Grandfather teaches that creativity is
the practice of being present.

Grandfather is about memory.
They are the collected wisdom of eons passing.
Every striation, every crevice, every layer revealed, tells stories of when the earth was new
and always new again.
Grandfather abides.

Grandfather is about relationship.
All are welcome at their side.
Lichen come to draw the nutrient that creates soil for plants and trees.
Humans come with ochre to mark the doorways that lead to other realms.
Large and small, all that live are drawn to Grandfather’s solidity, assurance, and wisdom.

52N 0W, Hertfordshire, Diana Buzoianu

The project “By Degrees” was conceived in 2021 when being a bit of a map nerd, I found myself one day pondering the places where lines of latitude and longitude intersect. I had never knowingly been to such a place, so was intrigued to find out where was the closest to my home. Having located it – some 43 miles to the south – I then wondered where its next closest neighbours were. Perhaps inevitably, this led me to plotting all the intersections on a map of the UK and then considering the feasibility of photographing them all. I quickly realised that it would involve a huge amount of travelling and that it would be a daft idea to attempt it alone. But why not involve others? I took my idea to the RPS Landscape Group committee as a proposal, and so By Degrees was born!

Getting the project off the ground involved firstly working out where all the intersections are and plotting them on a map so that people could easily identify their nearest ones. I figured that people were more likely to get involved if they could relate abstract coordinates to a place that they knew. The mapping wasn't too difficult as you can just type, say, "53N 2W" into Google Maps, and it will show you the exact location.

The lines of latitude and longitude intersecting over the UK and Ireland

It turned out that there are 34 places where lines of latitude and longitude intersect over land in the UK, and I was really pleased to find that people volunteered for every intersection. The project brief gave participants the choice of photographing either the view from their chosen intersection or a view with the intersection in the frame.

From the outset, we planned a special edition of the landscape group's printed magazine and so anticipated that there would need to be a process for selecting which images should be published in cases where several photographers photographed at the same locations. To achieve this, we established a selection panel comprising RPS members Simon Hill, Hon.FRPS and Joe Cornish, Hon.FRPS, Vanda Ralevska (regular judge for Landscape Photographer of the Year) and Nigel Clifford FRGS, president of the Royal Geographical Society.

Inevitably, of course, I was keen to take part myself and so I photographed the two intersections closest to my home and also two others that I pass regularly when visiting my family in central Scotland. What I very quickly learned through my own participation was just how difficult it can be to make a decent image when the location is just a seemingly random spot on a map! Challenges that participants had to address included not only uninspiring locations but also getting access to private land and getting to some pretty remote places.

One of my personal favourite images was Ann Miles’ stunning panorama of a field of crops (chard?), showing that with a bit of inventiveness, even a seemingly endless flat landscape can be made engaging.

53N 0W, Lincolnshire, Ann Miles

I also have to acknowledge the efforts that some participants went to in order to get their images. Jean Robson needed a 7km cycle up a dirt road, then a climb up and over a col covered in deep heather and finally a plod across a bog in order to get to the intersection at 57oN 4oW to take this image of the Monadhliath hills.

57N 4W, Dumfries & Galloway, Jean Robson

As the deadline for image submissions approached, it began to look likely that nobody was going to photograph at a couple of intersections in the Highlands (57oN 3oW in Aberdeenshire and 57oN 5oW in Assynt in the Highlands). Unsurprisingly, these were the two most remote locations, requiring several miles of tramping across heather moorland on a compass bearing. Rather than leave these intersections unphotographed, another landscape group committee colleague and I set off to photograph them ourselves. Whilst heather moorlands drying up because of summer droughts is most definitely not something to be celebrated, it did mean that this final challenge was slightly less arduous than it could have been. And so it was, in September 2022, that the project was completed.

All images submitted were subsequently uploaded to an online gallery which can be viewed here: https://rps.org/groups/landscape/projects/by-degrees/gallery.

As far as I am aware, such a project has never been undertaken before, and we believe that it is, therefore, unique. Feedback from participants was really enthusiastic, with people often saying how much they had enjoyed the challenge of photographing “odd” locations!

A Selection of Submissions

The following is a curated selection of images from the project. All captions are from the photographers.

53N 0, Lincolnshire, Ann Miles

My exact location was 53degrees 0 minutes 51.16 seconds North/ 0 degrees 0 minutes 1.57 seconds West. I am facing West so panorama covers from S to N. Meridian which was approximately 1 km south of my location. The intersection is in the direction of the far left of my scene.

55N 4W, Dumfries & Galloway, Jean Robson

Taken from about 100 meters from the intersection, because the farmer advised against entering the field with a bull in it. Taken looking in a SSE direction across the intersection.

51N 2W, Wiltshire, Richard Draper

The puddle arrow points to the middle of the field where the intersection of 51N 2W lies. I was about 80 metres from the point at 50°59'58" N 2°00'02" W and at 155 metres altitude. I was facing east on 30th January 2022 as the winter sun was close to setting. This is a lovely part of Cranborne Chase at the southern end of Wiltshire close to the intersection with Hampshire and Dorset. The nearest village is Bowerchalke, where the river Chalke rises and flows into the nearby River Ebble.

52N 0W, Hertfordshire, Diana Buzoianu

This point is in the middle of a field of solar farm and it shows a wonderful juxtaposition between nature and the creative minds of humans to harness clean energy.

52N 0, Hertfordshire, Diana Buzoianu

I couldn’t pick a better time for photographing this coordinates ..the storm Eunice was just approaching. I had my vision of capturing the image of this golden oak tree from above from my drone but the storm made it definitely impossible to fly. As I was looking for other ways of capturing the point, a beautiful rainbow was just beginning to shine through the heavy grey clouds of rain. Just for a few seconds a stunning view of the tree enveloped by the rainbow appeared. That was definitely more than I could ask for.. This oak tree is right on the coordinates 52N.3W and stands tall in the middle of a field in the village of Michaelchurch Escley in Herefordshire.

52N 4W Carmarthenshire, Neil Purcell

52N 4W, is on a site adjacent to the B4337, at Dinas Quarry, Pen y Ddinas, near Llansawel in Carmarthenshire.

The hill of Pen Dinas was an area of unimproved pasture, known locally as 'the Warren’. Once upon time, there were the remains of a summer-house 'within some sort of ancient encampment' (Notebook on Carmarthenshire 1804-10). It is probable that the 'ancient encampment' was a later prehistoric type hillfort, which are otherwise scarce in the locality.

The remains of the summer house, or possibly a prospect tower, were said to have been part of the nearby Edwinsford estate.

The site, now owned by Tarmac, is abandoned, having closed down in the late 1980’s. When operational, it mostly produced granite grit for road construction, as well as a surprising amount of quartz crystal.

The exact intersection is inaccessible, buried beneath deep brambles and bracken. Facing WNW, I opted for this shot on the topmost part of the site, which is approximately 300 metres north of the intersection, and which speaks a little of the history and nature of the place and the people who once worked there.

52N 5W, Pembrokeshire, Michael Cooper

This intersection point is located in Dyffryn, Goodwick, Pembrokeshire. The actual intersection point is at the back of this abandoned ruinous old building, to the rear of this wall is dense impenetrable scrub on private land. I am standing approximately 5-6 m NE of the actual intersection point facing roughly SW

53N 1W, Nottinghamshire, Kevin Gibbin

Looking approximately north-north-west with Cocker Beck on my right, the intersection is on the left of the image just in front of the hedgerow.

53N 4W, Gwynedd, Saul Richmond Huck

The intersection of 53N 4W is alongside one of the Diffwys lakes in the Moelwyns in Snowdonia. Having climbed as far as the exact location it seemed a shame not to climb a bit further to elevate myself above and look back over the intersection to show it in its storm-beaten surroundings. The image was taken at 53°00'10.0"N 3°59'50.0"W. The intersection is at the left-hand side of the picture 360m away and is located underneath the left-most limb of the left-hand lake. The vista is looking southwest over the Croesor Valley towards Porthmadog with the slopes of Cnicht on the right.

54N 2W, Yorkshire, John Foster

Burning heather on Barden Moor at 54N. 2W. My exact location was 54.00341 N, 1.99263 W. I was facing SSW and I was around 300 yards from the intersection. I think the intersection is approximately where the tractor is, to the extreme left of the shot. The heather burners didn’t want me to come any closer.

55N 7W Co. Derry, Robin Taylor-Hunt

The intersection point sits within a pasture field, overlooking an area of farmland that lies in between Lough Foyle to the north-west and the striking skyline of Binevinagh to the north-east. However, on the morning I was there the visibility and light was not too exciting, and so I ended up going for a close-up of the intersection point itself - this dried out old dock plant within the grass field.

58N 7W, Isle of Harris, Alex Nail

58N 7W on Harris is one of the most scenic latitude and longitude intersections in the whole country. I camped at the spot overnight with my wife and our dog at the end of May hoping for a sunset but instead finding overcast conditions and an icy northerly wind. I was up at 4.30am the following morning to find clear skies and I made my way to the northern side of Loch Braigh Bheagarais to align the loch with the distant view of the Harris hills and Luskentyre. This photo was taken at 58°00’05”N 7”00’09”W. The true intersection lies just 300m from this point, on the far left edge of the image, but ultimately this majestic view was too much to pass up!

57N 3W Aberdeenshire, John Stewart

The intersection is a 5 mile walk from Ballater. I chose a very warm day with thunderstorms predicted. It is situated near a grouse moor so had to choose a Sunday when the grouse get a day off being shot. I am about 200 yards from the point looking south east towards Mount Keen which is the most Easterly Munro (over 300 feet). Luckily the ground was very dry as this area is usually a bog. The intersection is more-or-less central in the frame in the lower ground behind the foreground rocks.

57N 3W Aberdeenshire, Colin Balfour

Taken from the intersection point looking south-southeast towards Mount Keen (939m) which is the most easterly Munro.

57N 3W Aberdeenshire, Mark Reeves

Taken at the intersection following the driest July for over 100 years, this image depicts a totally dry upland peat bog. The image looks towards the munro Mount Keen (939m) some 3km to the SSE. The heather and grasses were rendered white by the use of an infrared camera whilst the peat, visible in the bog gullies in the foreground and middle distance, appears black.

One of the most personally rewarding aspects of moving to California eight years ago has been my discovery of, and growing fascination (some would say obsession) with, the incredible desert landscape of Joshua Tree National Park.

I have always been passionate about the outdoors, hiking, and exploring the hills and mountains of the UK and Europe.

I was born in the UK and spent 25+ years working in aerospace engineering (15 years while living in France and Germany). I'm now a recovering engineer and divide my time between marketing and photography.

I started taking photos at the age of 14 with my trusty Soviet-era Zenit 10 SLR camera, teaching myself the fundamentals of photography via countless rolls of poorly exposed black and white 35mm film. In my late teens, I progressed to slide film and loved Kodachrome for its rich saturated colours.

In 1996, we moved to Toulouse (France), staying for five years before moving to Munich (Germany) for 18 months, then back to the UK for four years, before living in Hamburg (Germany) for eight years.

As my career progressed (and consumed more and more hours), and during the early years of having a family, I had minimal opportunities for 'creative photography.' My photography was mainly family snapshots to document my daughters growing up and our family holidays together.

My photographic hiatus ended when we moved to Hamburg. I became good friends with another photographer, who gave me the encouragement I needed to make more time for my photography. Hamburg is a visually interesting city, and I took many photo walks around the city, taking urban and abstract images. I was hooked on photography again!

As I’m on the wrong side of 50, when I started my engineering career, I spent about 10 years drafting engineering drawings on film using pencil or ink. These 2D drawings represented 3D objects, and that gave me good spatial awareness, a sense of perspective, the use of leading lines, patterns, etc.

Many of those things carry over into my photography - especially in terms of how I interpret a scene in terms of lines, shapes, and textures.

I’m also very organised and methodical (to the point of obsession) and, being technically minded, enjoy the technical specifics of using camera equipment.

From 2010 to 2014, several events shaped my photographic journey and where we now live.

In 2010, we had our first trip to Joshua Tree National Park. My wife and I were staying in Palm Springs, and on a whim, we signed up for a 4WD trip to Joshua Tree. It was only a half-day, but I remember being fascinated by the desert landscape and vowed that someday I'd go back.

A turning point for my photography was attending my first (and to this date - only) photo workshop in 2011 - a landscape and seascape photography workshop in Dorset (UK). This workshop was a game changer for me for three reasons:

• I used a tripod for the first time
• It was drummed into me always to trust the histogram
• I started using filters

Later in 2011, I transitioned from engineering to publishing and then marketing (that’s a story in itself). Once in my new marketing role, I took, on average, 30 long-haul trips per year (~400,000 miles annually) to the US, the Middle East, Australia, and Asia. During each work trip, I tried to fit in a half-day or day to explore and take photos.

After my frequent visits to the US West Coast for work - company visits, exhibitions, conferences, etc., I decided to take a job in the US, and we moved to SoCal (Lake Forest, OC) in August 2014.

Visiting Joshua Tree (appropriately) in 2014 reignited my passion for time spent out in nature and highlighted that I needed to improve my work/life balance significantly. It also triggered my transition from urban and abstract photography to landscape photography.

I started visiting Joshua Tree more frequently as I fell in love with the place - the desert - the landscape - the climate - the trees, and flora. I started spending more and more time in Joshua Tree - and now typically spend two weekends per month there.

I have always been passionate about the outdoors, hiking, and exploring the hills and mountains of the UK and Europe. So when I moved to the US, my approach was no different. When I first started visiting Joshua Tree, I did a lot of hiking and made it a point to always walk on different trails, to get the lay of the land and build my knowledge of the park.

This approach has got me to some great locations that the majority of visitors will never see, as many don’t stray far from the road. For me, it unlocked the potential for Joshua Tree images.

Joshua Tree is an International Dark Sky Park - measuring 2 on the Bortle Scale - so is an excellent location for dark sky photography, such as star trails and photographing the milky way. I had never taken a dark sky photo before visiting Joshua Tree.

Joshua Tree is one of those places that doesn’t have an abundance of ‘classic photography locations’ - so it doesn’t see the typical over-saturation of me-too images of the same places. The fact that you have to work harder to find good images is a big part of the attraction for me.

I started Jon Norris Photography in 2018 as I wanted to share my love and passion for Joshua Tree while helping others learn and improve their landscape photography. I run one-to-one and small group workshops and provide online mentoring.

In 2021 I became a business member/sponsor of the Joshua Tree National Park Association - JTNPA (the official non-profit partner of Joshua Tree National Park). JTNPA supports natural and cultural resource preservation and educational activities. In January 2022, I became a volunteer for the JTNPA desert institute and help lead educational field classes on photography, wildlife, and geology. The volunteers attend each of the classes to support the instructor and ensure the welfare of the class attendees while out in the Joshua Tree desert.

I’m delighted to say that from Spring 2023, I’m also going to be an instructor for the Desert Institute, teaching two weekend photography workshops - a Fundamentals of Landscape Photography course and then an Advanced Landscape Photography course.

Joshua Tree National Park has profoundly impacted both my photography and me personally. It's my happy place, and I love getting off the grid and spending time exploring and experiencing this special place.

Exhibition details

I'm delighted to be showing my first exhibition, 'Seven Years in the Desert,' at the 29 Palms Art Gallery from Aug 31 to Sep 30, 2023. I hope that you'll join me for the artist reception that's being held on Sat, Sep 2, from 4-6 pm. Gallery hours are Fri-Sun, 11 am - 3 pm. You'll find the gallery at 74055 Cottonwood Drive (at National Park Drive), Twentynine Palms, CA 92277.

Almost 40 years ago, I moved to Wisconsin and found myself living near the Northern Unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest.

The Northern Unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest is a pocket of green surrounded by agricultural land. With 12,150 hectares and a number of trails, the forest provides numerous opportunities to explore. It lies in an area of glacial deposits left behind from when the lobes of two ice age glaciers met, shaping its irregular terrain. It is home to drumlins, kettles, eskers, and some of the best examples of moulin kames in North America which provide an interesting but not spectacular terrain. While it has one of the oldest forests in southern Wisconsin, it is not a pristine wilderness. Nearly half of it was formerly agricultural land, with more having been logged. Parts were reforested with conifer plantations not typical of the area that was dominated by hardwoods pre-European settlement. It continues to be subjected to logging. The arrival of numerous exotic, invasive species has also left its mark, with non-native plant species now being widespread. The emerald ash borer from Asia has killed all of the once abundant ash trees.

Its unnatural state is what remains of nature in this part of Wisconsin. As a long-term observer of this area, it is easy to notice the changes. At the same time, it is easy to overlook the resilience of the land and its flora. It may be changing, but it still is green with unique terrain, and it was beginning to have a deepening hold on me. I do not want to see this forest as just another example of environmental loss. I still find in this land the ability to be lost in “nature” and also to be lost in oneself.

The things I was noticing about my surroundings inspired me to return to photography. For the last ten years, I have been photographing the area. I started trying to capture the kettle moraine with one photographic slice of the landscape at a time with the hope that the slices would add up to a document of the forest as a whole. My repeat visits to the same areas had me thinking about the work as a series rather than single images. With time, I realised my photographs were not documents. I was selecting views that presented a very personal view of this place. Through the photographs, I was creating my own personalised map of my walks both in space and through time.

Even with having spent so much time in this area, it is still possible to see something intriguing around each corner. Knowing that each day it is possible to perceive the same world differently keeps the challenge and reward ongoing for both exploring and for photography. This land is not one of the large vistas. The subjects for photography are subtler and lead to a more reflective approach. The land, flora, and light gives one an ever changing surroundings that one needs to stay enthralled.