IN THE BEGINNING
Previously on November 2025 I talked about the latest image I was truly satisfied with, stating that of the thousands I had taken over fifty years there were very few which I could truly say I was happy with. Since then I have toyed with the idea of adding a few more of those images complete with their back stories. Logically the story should start with the image that began it all, which until now I had not been able to locate. Please excuse its quality as this rough test print is the only copy I could find.
The image is a winter shot of Scafell Pike, Piers Ghyll and Lingmell taken from near Napes Ridge on Great Gable sometime around 1978-1982, a time when rock climbing had been replaced with easier scrambling and my interest in photography was beginning to take off. My cameras at that time were all Minolta and I guess this was taken on The XE1 with a lens focal length of around 100mm. The film used was Kodak Tri-X a 400ASA monochrome film and I can remember that accurately because I had made the classic schoolboy error of leaving my colour transparency film on the table at home and had quickly run-through the part roll left in the camera. My companion on the day came to my rescue but had no colour to spare just a roll of TRI-X which he had been given and didn't really want to use. Up until that day although I had been printing my own B&W for some time all my scapes were colour and this was to be the first time I had used 400ASA monochrome
Whether it was simply this image or the change of film I don't know but that grainy final print I made back in the darkroom changed my photography forever. Soon after that I built a permanent darkroom and spent the greater part of my free time combing the wilder areas of Scotland and Northern England for that elusive perfect landscape.
