Hills and History
Contents of this page:-
Section 1a - Hills, Part I (Film Archive of Scottish Mountain Walks, 1999 to 2003)
An archive of ‘early images’ shot on film during excursions amongst the Scottish mountains…
Section 1b - Hills, Part II (Film Archive of British Upland Walks, 1995 to 2006)
A further archive of ‘early images’ shot on film amongst Britain’s moors and mountains…
Section 2 - History (Digital Archive of 'Hill-days and Holidays', 2007 to 2020)
An archive of digital imagery shot in the UK, encompassing themes of home, hills and holidays…
Hills and History - Section 1a (Film Archive)
Hills, Part I (Scottish Mountain Walks, 1999 to 2003)
Section 1a of my UK archive gallery features photographs shot by myself or my father Nigel on Scottish mountain walks between 1999 and 2003. (Images by Nigel Mann are denoted by an asterisk [*] at the end of the photo caption.)
These pictures were all taken in my pre-digital days using modest ‘point and shoot’ film cameras. Some years later, the resulting prints or negatives were scanned and digitised to create the versions reproduced here.
For wider consideration of these digitised film images - plus a few related anecdotes - please see my inaugural mountain photography blog, Camera on the Crags.
Also please note that further retrieved archive imagery (both film and digital) can be viewed through my subsequent pair of illustrated blogs, The Ballad of Bellever Tor (focusing on Dartmoor) and Shadow in the Tin (Isle of Skye). For more on the latter, please see Section 1b, below.
In addition, my Blog page’s latest ‘wilderness’ piece, The Curious Case of Rose and Laurie, features digital imagery shot amongst Arran’s mountains between 2017 and 2023 (though the eponymous event which they illustrate dates from Victorian times!). :-0
Film Archive - Highlands of Scotland
Hills and History - Section 1b (Film Archive)
Hills, Part II (British Mountain and Moorland Walks, 1995 to 2006)
Section 1b of my UK archive gallery features further film imagery captured on British mountain or moorland walks, this time between 1995 and 2006. (As before, images taken by my father Nigel are denoted by an asterisk [*] at the end of the photo caption; if there’s no caption, hill pictures in which I appear are probably by my Dad!)
To all intents and purposes, these archive pics share the same provenance as those of Section 1a - the only real difference is that the shots from my opening section (Scotland 1999-2003) happened to be digitised earlier, consequently forming the basis of my inaugural mountain photography blog, Camera on the Crags. And while my opening images were scanned, those of the section below are merely ‘photos of photos’ (i.e. digital shots of dusty old prints). I’m hoping this captures a certain do-it-yourself spirit, using nostalgia to paper over some gaping cracks in the façade of ‘technical excellence’!
The driver for digitising my Section 1b images was in fact a subsequent blog, Shadow in the Tin, which celebrates the exploration of Britain’s most dramatic mountain range: the Black Cuillin of Skye. Yet while raiding some old family albums in search of Skye-scrapers, I couldn’t help but stumble across a few sepia-tinged adventures from elsewhere. This reminded me that a number of my favourite mountain areas - not least the Lake District and Snowdonia - are sadly under-represented on this website, despite featuring so prominently in a misty corner of my mind. To be honest, relative to the profusion of wonderful walks and scary scrambles undertaken in my far-flung youth, these fantastic regions remain under-represented. The images retrieved below are really just tokens, like splashes of paint marking the tip of a receding, goretex-clad iceberg.
Or maybe that’s an analogy too far?! :-0
Film Archive - Dartmoor (Devon) and Bodmin Moor (Cornwall)
Eastern Whittabarrow (July 2006)
Film Archive - Lakeland (Cumbria)
(April 1996)
contemplating the descent are my friends Adam, Chris and Paul
(July 1996)
Film Archive - Snowdonia (North Wales)
(March 2006)
(May 1996)
(May 1996)
(May 1996)
Film Archive - Western Highlands (Scotland)
(April 1998)
Film Archive - Isle of Skye (Scotland)
Skye is an undisputed Mecca of British mountaineering, being home to the UK's most dramatic mountain range - The Black Cuillin - as well as hosting The Red Hills and the otherworldly forms of The Storr and Quiraing. My Dad and I would enjoy several walking/scrambling trips to the island between 1995 and 2007, shooting on film for all but the last of these. The archived film highlights presented here were originally reclaimed for my Skye-based blog/short story,
Shadow in the Tin...
Of Skye's dozen Munros, the only one which we didn't reach the true top of was the aptly named Inaccessible Pinnacle (In Pinn). We did, however, get close enough to confirm that we were happy for this formidable blade of rock to remain our Nemesis!
Return to start of Section 1
Hills and History - Section 2 (Digital Archive)
History (Hill-days and Holidays, 2007 to 2020)
The second section of my UK archive gallery features a variety of images taken in the British Isles from 2007 (when I first ‘went digital’) to 2020.
These pictures were typically shot either on family holidays (often to Cornwall or Scotland), or on various walking excursions in coastal or hill country. In just a few cases (generally the macro shots), they were snapped closer to my Devon home. They remain simple ‘point and shoot’ pics, although in most instances with a degree of basic post-processing applied (sometimes retrospectively) using Picasa.
A number of my early digital images - from 2007 - continue the theme of the above film archive, illustrating explorations in and around the incomparable Cuillin of Skye. My gallery then branches out to disparate corners of Britain, visiting each of Scotland, England and Wales along the way. With too many individual pics to caption, I’ll let eagle-eyed viewers decipher the various locations if they so wish! ;-)
Amongst the Cuillin (2007)*
Summit selfie atop Slioch, just before a storm swept in to enliven the descent (2009)
Big Sky - Orkney (2015)
Big Hill - Ben More, Mull (2018)
Although most of my digital archive is courtesy of modest automatic cameras, from 2014 onwards I would sometimes employ a Fuji X-S1 bridge camera… which, as the name suggests, was to serve as my bridge to the Fuji X-T3 mirrorless model which I would adopt during 2020 (for more on the latter, please see my Annual Gallery or Portfolio pages).
Big Comb - Cìr Mhòr, Arran (2018)
The archive gallery presented below is broadly in chronological order, from the earliest images (~2007) through to the latest (2020).
As ever, particular thanks go to the special people with whom these adventures have been shared… :-)
Digital Archive - Hill-days and Holidays (UK)
For wider viewing, please note that a selection of Cruise Images and Photo Collages can be found within my Boat-Trips & Composites archive page.
Collections of more recent Fuji X-T3 photographs (2020 and beyond) are available via my Annual Galleries - or, for general highlights (in condensed form), please see my Portfolio pages.
Return to start of Section 1 (Hills)
Return to start of Section 2 (History)
Return to Home Page (About the Photographer)