Edge of the Vale

In the summer I spent a few evenings and early mornings shooting the hills surrounding the valley of the River Stour — the Blackmore Vale — in North Dorset and South Somerset.

For much of the year, the clay and low limestone ridges of Thomas Hardy's vale of little dairies provide little to keep a landscape photographer occupied for long.

But in the golden hour light, the steep scarp slopes of the chalk downs to the south and east can. The Dorset Downs in the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and Cranborne Chase in the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs AONB — all part of the extensive chalk formation that forms much of the upland and sea cliffs of southern England — provide promontories, like Bulbarrow and Fontmell, and islands in the vale, like Hambledon and Duncliffe.

And the more gently rising limestone that divides the Stour flowing south east to the English Channel from the Yeo, flowing north west to the Bristol Channel, dropping in its own scarp into the Somerset Levels, with its own peninsulas and islands at Corton Beacon and Cadbury Castle.

These photos all taken in August and September 2012, but more can be found in the Dorset gallery.

Winter fogs past

I love those freezing winter nights, when everything condenses into one big fog.

And the light blurs...

And the shapes merge...

White Christmas

At Christmas it snowed in Dorset. It doesn't often snow in Dorset. When it does, everyone gets out to use it while it lasts.

Goes sledging in the steep sheep fields.

Flattening the snow on the paths through the woods.

Leaving icy tracks on every slope.

Taking photos of the familiar landscape in a new outfit.

Before their feet trample it all down.

The Cheese Festival

I love the Durham Township photoblog -- all the fabulous atmospheric shallow-focus photos of rural Pensylvania. Especially the ones of the traditional county fairs and farm shows. The kids with candyfloss, prize livestock on display, and old fashioned family entertainment.

We have those in England, too: things like the Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival, a celebration of cheese and cider, annual except if it rains so hard that the river floods the car park field. A place to show off local artisan foods, crafts, and livestock.

Where you can test your strength, guess the number of sweets in the jar, watch a classic Punch and Judy show, or learn how to milk a lifesize plastic animatronic cow that's branded with the name of the local independent supermarket.

Or just enjoy the late summer of the English Westcountry.

From here to a promontory

The rocks that rebuilt London

were pulled from a distant limestone island

where the wastes from once great quarries

now give way to stormy seas

where the racing tides of the Shambles bank are kept safe and shipwreck free

by Portland Bill.

A True Story.

More pictures in the Portland gallery...