Pennine Lines w/c 27 May 2024
|| Damp, mild || Midgeville ||
Voyager in winter sunlight || Burbage North
|| Event ||
The Big Depot Climbing Fair
The Peak seemed eerily quiet this weekend, for a Bank Holiday especially. Maybe it was something to do with the wet weather and midges, I guess we’ll never know. But twice I walked along the top of Stanage for a non-existent sunset to find what is allegedly the most famous and busy crag in the country more or less deserted. Is everyone just climbing indoors? Had everyone already fled to the pub, with a cloud of midges hot on their heels? Or is it that EVERYONE assumes the crag will be rammed, so avoids it? Anyway, as the kids are off this week and I’m in full Fun Dad mode I’ll keep this one short, and mainly with an advertorial slant. Normal existential wrangling will resume next time.
Some of you north of the M62 may have noted that there is a new community climbing event on next month in “big city” Leeds. This is being run at The Big Depot, a space with a long history having started out as The Leeds Wall back in the 1990s, being one of the first big centres in the country - a bit like The Foundry is to Sheffield. The wall came under the Depot’s wing a few years back and was fully refurbished and rebuilt last year, and I had a fun couple of days up there shooting images for their website and social media and not to mention the huge banner hanging outside.
The Big Depot, Leeds || Climber: Molly Thompson-Smith
Anyway, the event is an all-day Climbing Fair, where you pay the normal price to get in and then for an offensively small sum you can sign on to various skills workshops about safety, technical skills, pushing your grade etc etc, and the day wraps up with a film screening and talk in the evening. There’s also going to be loads of local clubs present, top brands represented, and the BMC so you can learn about access issues and crag custodianship etc. The ticket money from the workshops all goes to the Yorkshire Bolt Fund too, so it should be a great day for the Yorkshire climbing community (and it IS a community). I trust the coffee and food will be up to the Depot’s normal high standards, and the staff are a sound bunch, so this an event worth checking out if you’re in the area. And let’s face it the weather is guaranteed to be crap so you’ve got nothing to lose.
Why am I plugging this, you may well ask? Well yours truly here will be running climbing photography workshops throughout the day. We’ll look at some technical skills, thought processes and problem solving, lighting and composition, with plenty of hands-on shooting too. If you’ve got an interest in photography but never really managed to make it ‘click’ (pun intended) with climbing, or you’re new to climbing and naturally want to take nice photos of climbing, or just want to raise your climbing photography game a little, this this is for you. Spaces for each session are limited - no passengers - so don’t forget to book. I’ll also have some signed copies of Grit Blocs on sale on the day too, so get involved.
|| Black & White Work Online ||
Another thing to plug; I’ve been updating the print shop not only with some new colour large format landscape images, but also with some close-up detail black & white images. Like most climbers I’m far from being a geologist but you sort of develop an eye for interesting bits of rock, the big and the small. So this is a collection of what you might call ‘rock studies’, images I’ve made mainly on 5x4” large format black & white film. A set of mini rock landscapes on a smaller scale than we normally deal with for climbing, but no less aesthetically pleasing for it. That is not to say that someone in Lancashire couldn’t manage a sit-start mantle on a few of these stones but that’s a different story.
Anyway, see a few examples below, and the Voyager image at the top. More will be added in due course - and don’t forget it’s Father’s Day coming up soon….a classy bit of black & white art for the wall beats socks and chocolate any day, that’s all I’m saying….
|| Supported By ||
|| Recently Through the lens ||
Here's a few shots of brave folk running the Stanage midge gauntlet and winning recently.
|| Fresh Prints ||
And finally, here's a couple of the aforementioned brand new black & white rock details from the Print Shop. Add a bit of class to your hovel.
