Tag: Landscape

Floating On A Dream

31 Comments

The last day sundown of July was quite something special. From my backyard I cannot see the sun itself set as it slips behind a wooded hill and neighbouring houses. Yet last night the way the lowering sun reflected its dying light off the clouds it was almost like a 360 degree sunset. The sky in the image was taken facing the east.

I am always taken by clouds, and the different types and layers that decorate the sky, and how the changing light interplays with all these elements. Sometimes it is like peering out the window of our world with fresh, clean eyes, making a connection with the cosmos that stirs the emotions perhaps on a primitive level. After all, that window out is the very same window that humankind has been looking through from the dawn of ages. And maybe, just maybe, it is that recognition that we are a part of something much bigger and that sense of ‘feeling’ and connection that trully makes us human and what and who we are.

July Sunset

Cosmic Connections

26 Comments

Standing amidst the sand dunes watching the sun slip down the distant horizon is such a beautiful spectacle to behold. Soaking up the changing atmosphere as the colours of the sky and sea alter simultaneously, almost like they are melting into one another, a cooling breeze ruffling through your hair is purely awe-inspiring.

Distant gulls screech and sail through the pink and sepia flushed skies, voicing their last for the day as the light gradually fades, our star appearing to sink into the ocean afar, but rising out of the deep to brighten a new day somewhere on the opposite side of the world.

Sunset Over The West Shore
Sunset Over The West Shore
Sunset Over The West Shore

I wonder who maybe standing there in a strange far off land, as I am standing here now in the moment, marvelling at such a wonder of cosmic perfection and splendour slowly unveiling itself in reverse.

I can’t help but wonder what thoughts pass through their mind, and if they are thinking and feeling the same as I do. A star connecting two minds, as it connects us all.

Copyright: Peter Hillman
Camera used: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ38
Date taken: 19th April 2011
Place: West Shore Beach, Llandudno, Wales

Totland Pier

8 Comments

Totland Bay Pier was completed in 1880, with a small shelter at the pier head and a small amusement arcade at the shore side. It is a 450ft (137m) long cast-iron girder construction. The funds to build it were raised by the nearby Totland Hotel which has since been demolished. During the Victorian era it was used to allow paddle steamers to dock, enabling tourists to visit the area.

Totland Pier

Sadly the bulk of the pier has now become derelict and closed to the public, but a nice little cafe has replaced the arcade shore side, and I had coffee there on a bench outside. The last time I visited here was back in the ealy 1990s, and an artist had bought it and used it as his studio. The pier aside, I really like the green-cloaked rocks on the beach.

Copyright: Peter Hillman
Camera used: Nikon D7200
Date taken: 5th September 2019
Place: Totland, Isle of Wight, England

View From The Shore

28 Comments

Derwentwater

This is one of the views from across Derwentwater, a large body of water in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria. The last time I visited here was 18 years ago. I wonder why I left it so long when there is so much beauty here amidst nature.

July 2018, © Pete Hillman.

Field of A Wondrous Blue

37 Comments

Flax Linum usitatissimum

The air was heavy and hot as thunderstorms roamed the land. I rounded a bend near the river and a space opened up in the greenery by a huge old oak tree. Beyond was such a vision I had never seen before. A field of blue. Pastel blue. So much blue it was as if the sky above had fragmented and fell to earth. It took my breath away …

Flax Linum usitatissimum

Of course it wasn’t the sky but cultivated Flax Linum usitatissimum, or Linseed as it is also called.

Flax Linum usitatissimum

Flax Linum usitatissimum

May 2018, local field, Staffordshire, England. © Pete Hillman. Sigma 18-300mm lens.

Light At The End of The Tunnel

11 Comments

Country Lane

I love the way nature adds fine layer upon fine layer to paint and fill its environments so lushly. This is a shot looking back down a local country lane filled with various green hues and different shaped leaves.

May 2018, Staffordshire, England. © Pete Hillman. Sigma 18-300mm lens.

Winter Morning Light

23 Comments

I have added no photoshop effects to this. This is the image more or less as I took it that cold winter’s morn as the sunlight filtered through the ivy cloaked trees of the woods.

December 2016, local wood, Staffordshire, England.

River Light Reflections

34 Comments

River Light

During one of my walks along my local river, I was so taken by the sunlight filtering through the trees and reflecting off the cool water. I felt like I was peering into some magical, watery fairy realm. The light lit up the bottom of the riverbed and bought out the beautiful earthen colours which would have otherwise lay hidden there in the dark. I flipped the original image over so the reflection ended the right way up, and did not have to do much else with it in editing. I am always on the look out for the unusual as well as beauty and wonder, and I am always in awe of what nature bestows to us.

Please click on the image for a larger view.

August 2016, Staffordshire, England.

The Crying Willow

19 Comments

The Old Willow

On the banks of the Great Myree, the old willow, now bent and crooked with age, shed a single tear. It froze one cold winter’s night, and has remained so through summer heat and seasons rainfalls for countless years. Like fossilised amber the tear shall remain as long as the old willow shall stand.

December 2017, Staffordshire England.

Autumn Winds

22 Comments

Autumn Winds

Whilst out in the local beech woods on Sunday morning I wanted to try and capture not only the autumnal colours but also the movement of the leaves to express how windy these past days have been due to a storm system crossing the country. I used a slow camera speed to try an capture the flutter of leaves in the cool October wind. I know this kind of contradicts what we try and do in photography, which is to attempt to capture the world perfectly still, between bouts of wind, but I thought I would just run with it, go with the flow of the wind and see where it took me 🙂

October 2017, Staffordshire, England.

An Ocean of Clouds

33 Comments

Can you perceive within those layers of billowing light, across a boisterous ocean, a far off land where gold tints the highest peaks?

We dream … and we can see what we will … or wish to see …

Dedicated to Linda who is dearly missed, but always in our hearts.

Sunrise through cloud, from rear garden, Staffordshire, England, September 2017.

Field Maple

4 Comments

Acer campestre

Field Maple Acer campestre

You know when I first came across this tree over twenty years ago on a local field boundary, I am embarrassed to say I did not know what kind of tree it was. I always liked its form, and it make a good perch for passing birds to rest on.

Also called ‘Common Maple’ or ‘English Maple’, this is a medium-sized deciduous tree which can be fairly variable in shape. It can be either broadly domed or narrow with a high dome. It can grow up to a height of 25m (82ft). The bark is grey-brown and fissured. The fairly small dark green leaves are 3-5 lobed, the top lobe being pointed and the bottom pair being smaller. Freshly open leaves have a pinkish tinge to them which eventually turn green. In autumn they can be quite a spectacle as they turn bright yellow then a reddish-brown colour. Male and female flowers occur together with the leaves in April to May and are yellowish-green. The winged fruits are in bunches of 4, with the wings horizontal, light green and stained crimson. These wings allow the seeds to be carried far from the parent plant by the wind.

Field Maple Acer campestre

Found in woods, hedgerows and open fields. This is Britain’s only native species of maple, and it is common as a wayside tree and hedgerow shrub in England and Wales. It is  scarcer further north.

Field Maple Acer campestre leaf

The Field Maple is an important food source to many insects, birds and mammals.

Field Maple Acer campestre trunk

September 2010 and August 2013, local field boundary, Staffordshire. © Pete Hillman 2010 and 2013.

Silk And Ice

11 Comments

Winter Landscape

Please click on images for full definition.

Photograph taken December 2016, local woods, Staffordshire. © Pete Hillman 2016. Camera used Nikon D7200, with Nikon 18-55mm lens.

Misty Dreams

12 Comments

Misty Dreams

Please click on images for full definition.

Photograph taken December 2016, local woods, Staffordshire. © Pete Hillman 2016. Camera used Nikon D7200, with Nikon 18-55mm lens.

Frosty Morning

10 Comments

Frosty Morning

Please click on image for full definition.

Photograph taken December 2016, local woods, Staffordshire. © Pete Hillman 2016. Camera used Nikon D7200, with Nikon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens.

Earth Nature

7 Comments

Earth

This is a series of photographs I took of a bunter sandstone outcrop near my local river bank. The diversity of life forms which sprang from the cracks and fissures were amazing, and I say ‘were’ for it has all been covered over due to excavation works to help support the canal above. Essential engineering works, I realise, to stop it collapsing, but I am glad I took these images before to remind me what beauty is in the earth and nature along this stretch of the river.

Earth

Earth

Earth

Earth

Earth

Photograph taken December 2012 near local river, Staffordshire. © Pete Hillman 2012. Camera used Nikon Coolpix P500.

 

Field of Gold

2 Comments

Even with dull, slate-grey skies you can usually find something out and about whilst walking that brightens the day. This is a field filled with Rape (Brassica napus), and the shoots on the trees were just opening up fresh and green.

Photograph taken May 2014, local field, Staffordshire.