From April 9 to 12, 2013, I escaped London for a brief but thoroughly refreshing family holiday in Dorset, on England’s south coast, far enough away from London to escape the greed and pretension that is sadly so dominant in the capital.

In two previous sets, “A Rainy Easter: Chesil Beach in Dorset,” and “Fog, Prison and the Sea: The Isle of Portland at Night,” I posted photos from the first day of the holiday, as the weather veered from overcast to foggy. None of this mattered, as the house we were staying in — a converted former chapel and former fisherman’s store — was a wonderful, inspiring place, as the first few photos in this set hopefully show, and we were, in any case, staying somewhere that was enchanting whatever the weather. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I was in Dorset for a four-day holiday with my family, staying in a rather magical, liminal place — Chiswell, a little village on the eastern end of Chesil Beach, on the Isle of Portland.

Chesil Beach is one of the great natural features of the UK, a shingle beach (technically a barrier beach), which is 18 miles long (29 km), 660 feet wide (200 m) and 50 feet (15 m) high, and staying there was a wonderful break from the frenetic, jangling polyrhythms of modern life, one in which the beach, the sea, the sky — and the changing weather patterns — were completely riveting, and pretty much all that was needed for a glimpse of the kind of stripped-down, old-school existence that those of us old enough to recall the pre-mobile, pre-computer age ought to remember, although many seem to have forgotten. Read the rest of this entry »

My apologies, to those of you who have been following my photographic projects, for the unexplained hiatus over the last few weeks. To explain briefly, I ran into two problems.

Firstly, I found myself rather overwhelmed by the number of photos I’ve taken of London since last July — over 10,000 in total, of which I’ve only managed to publish around 1,700 here. I decided that I needed to stand back from my project to record the whole of London by bike, which I began last May, and to take stock of what I have achieved so far. As a result, I have begun organising my photos by area, with the intention of organising some exhibitions and also publishing some photos in various forms, which I’ll let you know about as soon as they materialise. Read the rest of this entry »