- 204 miles over 23 days of walking – 8.8 miles per day – ranging from 4 to 14.
- 23 days of walking over 24 weeks – averaged 1 walk per week.
- Average of 7 hours per day walking – averaged 1.25 mph (including all stops).
- Exposed 113 B&W negatives – 4.9 per day.
- 53 B&W images published in the blog – 2.3 per day.
- Exposed 1133 colour digi-snaps – 49 per day.
- 60 colour digi-snaps published in the blog – 2.6 per day.
- 1500 miles driving – an average of about 65 miles per day.
- It’s not easy to have the need to walk and cover distance allied with the aim of finding good things to photograph. Too many times I found myself concentrating on the act of walking and paying little or no attention at all to what might be good subject matter to photograph. Over the years I’ve concluded that I do my best photography when there is no rush and no other distraction. I like time to contemplate a scene and allow potential images to develop as I spend time at a place. This is precisely not what happens when walking with a self imposed need to cover some miles.
- My photo backpack is far too heavy for my poor knees to carry for more than relatively short distances. After every day’s walk I suffered discomfort and stiffness for 24 hours. Without the weight I can walk without problems or aftereffects for twice the distance I can with my back pack. I speculated earlier that I might do this walk all over again, starting immediately, so that I had the chance of walking and photographing in the winter and spring. I’ve abandoned that idea.
Given my caveats and reservations above I must say that overall I’m very pleased with my B&W work though these three images really stand out for me.
Tyndale Monument from Stinchcombe Hill
Chandelier - St Peter's Church - Winchcombe
Bath Abbey - The Organ & North Transept
And as for the colour digi-snaps – I thought I’d only take a few for the record and show even less. But I was wrong there - I ended up taking 10 times as many as B&W pictures and publishing to my blog a similar number as in B&W. But there’s no chance of my making a change away from large format B&W. B&W is what I do and what I enjoy.As for the blog, well that's been my device to ensure that I kept going. I set myself the target of always writing my blog and publishing my colour pictures on the same day as the walk and bar a couple of days I always achieved that. After a few entries it became a matter of not breaching my commitment and failing publicly to complete what I set out to do. My B&W pictures have always had to follow days or even a week or two behind as they first require me to develop the film sheets and then scan them then work on them in PhotoShop to achieve my intended rendering. I've no idea how many or how few people have seen this blog though I do know I have some followers. Whether or not I've written anything of interest is of no real consequence, except that I've thoroughly enjoyed the discipline of having to assemble my thoughts and commit them to 'paper'. I've started to understand why people keep a diary - it helps remember!
And yes, it was worth every minute.