lines in the land

I'm playing with some visuals in preparation for putting my Schiehallion dyke walk (an extract is published on page 26 here) into a small lovely, book form, and have got so excited about seeing it stretch through the land in these tweaked photos. Why?

moss-gathering stones

I'm fascinated by gravestones at the moment. It's something to do with the combination of text, stone and the dynamic effects of weathering and colonisation by moss and lichen. Here's some that I photographed recently at the 13th century St Justus Church on Cornwall's Roseland peninsula, set in a semi-tropical woodland beside a tidal creek. I haven't fiddled with the colour!

Ice legacy

Today's the first time for several weeks that I've had my feet on grass and ground - quite squelchy ground too - when I've walked from home. The snow is leaving behind an interesting legacy. Great table-top slabs of ice have been dumped on the banks of the burn that crosses the golf-course, still huge and ice-berg-ish. The ways and paths - here and on the lower, thawing hills - that have been used by people, dogs, or sheep during the freeze now lie, visually graded according to the popularity of their use by the packed lines of ice that remain on them. Desire lines are criss-crossing open ground, laying white lace against the green. Interestingly, they don't always take direct lines to their destinations.