Tag: photography

7 billion reasons

One of the very first memories I have of travelling is looking out at the landscape of Europe from the plane window. I was flying to Greece. I was 10 years old. I had never seen something so beautiful before. Mountain pathways strewn through rocky scenes like arteries and pockets of forests dotted around as if dropped by the heavens above. Every time I have flown since, I try to wrangle the window seat. Ignoring the fact I am too shy to make small talk with strangers and don’t like to invade or have anyone invade my personal space, HELLO ANXIETY! I secretly covet this window into a world where you can see a scene that cannot be replicated. Each time you fly over the world it changes depending on season, time or frame of mind. The colours, the feelings, the awe. It has soothed me in times of great anxiousness and taken me out of my body to the pathways below. At times I feel like I am a fly on the wall of the tiny villages scattered below. How do those people live? Do they have worries like me? Are our worries different entirely?

The villages are so tiny, and accessed by the smallest of roads and highest of mountains, where do they go for their food? What happens if they fall ill? Does that make the worries I have trivial to these people?  

There is something about soaring above the world that makes me calm enough to let go of my worries, it opens up my eyes to the 7 billion people on the planet and the simple fact that I can’t be the only person with worries and anxieties. That in itself makes me realise I can handle it, because everyone else is. With love, friendship and a step outside my own anxieties once in a while. A lot of the time anxiety is described as being something you ‘suffer’ but it often strikes me that by changing our mindset to anxiety being something we ‘live with’ means we take control. We can stumble along our own mountain roads without too much fear and become used to the steep drops that appear along the way.

To the moon my friend. Imagine how much our eyes would see from there!

This is a relaunch of Framework Travel. A relaunch of who I can be. Who I want to be. What this blog can do to reach, help and inspire people.

Recently my anxiety has taken over my life. And something needs to change. More than ever I’ve felt my flight or fight kick in and for the first time ever I can’t fly. I can’t look down from that window and ignore my issues. The only thing I can do is come at it from a different perspective. If not from above, from within. 

So along with my very skilled photographer husband, we are relaunching Framework Travel as something personal, in which we will discuss our anxieties over covid, struggles with our health and fitness, fertility matters and ALOT of travel. 

We have in the last 18 months experienced a whole other way of travelling. And this year will involve more of that. We’ve embraced sustainable practices even more recently in and outside our home, and will be incorporating as much of this into our future travels. First up is a long weekend break in Northumberland in June, somewhere we’ve been twice before (both in 2021), but absolutely adore! Next up, *breathe* is a 16 day trip to the Scottish highlands along the NC500. We will be driving the entire route in our hybrid car and seeing how far we can stretch the almighty english pound. This will include extreme budgeting when it comes to accommodation, food and activities. With a very few luxuries thrown in for good measure, we are celebrating our wedding anniversary after all, we will be sharing everything we do and spend with you. Including what we pack! 

There are over 7 billion people in this world and if I can inspire and help others, my anxieties will seemingly melt away. I’ll be able to climb those mountains and traverse the highest, steepest paths home and maybe someone, up in the clouds, watching out of their plane window will feel some kind of respite from their own demons.

Are we the virus?

“Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle

It will always be apparent to the travellers of this world, that a photo can only tell you so much about a place. You see idyllic beaches in the Caribbean, pure white sand and crystal clear waters. It may shock you when you visit that the odd plastic bottle or crisp packet ruins your expectation. In many places, there are staff that go to the beaches at ungodly hours and rake up the debris from the surfs kiss upon the shore. We see all too often the capabilities of people on this planet. 

During lockdown in England, there were unprecedented numbers of visitors to beaches and parks. Not having to be at work and the fantastic sunshine that shone during the months of May and June in 2020, saw the restrictions of meeting outside well and truly met. The carnage left behind was devastating. Tonnes of litter left behind like never before. It was like the earth had had its breather while we were locked away in doors and this was our chance to do double the damage. 

There have been several news items in recent years about how overrun tourists spots have been in the UK since 2020. When lifting restrictions meant we could exercise outside for an hour daily, Snowden was overrun despite many people living more than an hour away. It was a clear example of give and inch and take a mile. 

Even now, in 2022, there are articles about the UK experiencing its highest level of domestic tourism for decades. We are two people who never really travelled the UK, before covid, I will put my hands up to that. If it weren’t for all the confusion about what country needs what test and form wise, I’m sure we would have planned a trip abroad. There is also the highly stressful experience of having to cancel and rebook a trip in 2020. (See my ‘Reclaming a sunset’ blog.) I’m grateful in a way to how much our travel perspective has changed. We always used to lean towards city breaks, with the vast cacophony of noises, people and culture, we thought we were getting all that place had to give. It wasn’t until we took a trip to Edinburgh and Northumberland in late 2021 that our vision was altered. We spent two days wandering to waterfalls and hiking the hills and we found rewards like we hadn’t before. The peace of it all, the personal pride of achieving new feats of exertion and the slower pace that we needed to heal.

Being in Northumberland felt like we were the first to discover new areas, the forests were empty and the hills were silent. None of this overrun business. And yet there was a time that all had to change. As I said, our tastes have changed, and I’m not saying we’d never been to the countryside, but given the choice we’d choose a day in London over hiking. Now it’s more, let’s get into the city at 5am, see it at its emptiest and leave by noon. Venice taught us that a city is at its most beautiful without its crowds. We’d done it before in London, purely from a photography point of view, but there is something in being the only one wandering the Thames at sunrise. 

This past weekend we went to a local forest to see the blooming bluebells. Despite their annual appearance this was my first time seeing their exuberance in such an enormous way. Walking amongst them felt like being in a dreamscape. The colours, the life and the sheer volume of nature’s power screamed out in the silence of the forest. I noticed that several paths had been trodden through the bluebells, their stamped on stems laying squashed underfoot, it was a big shame. When we returned to the car parks, I noticed a lot of signs asking people to keep to the pathways to avoid ruining the plants. It made me sad. 

Returning to Northumberland this year is a big deal for us, we just don’t do it. How can you see the world if you return to the same place twice? We have a select few places we’ll return to out of comfort and it seems Northumberland is one of those for the time being. It is one of those places that when you find one of its hidden secrets, it whispers to you another one. 

On the coast, and our first taste of Northumberland, stands Bamburgh Castle. Surprisingly, in early August it was unexpectedly quiet. We parked without problem, and walked the beach without disturbing towels or sandcastles. It’s been said this week that Bamburgh is 2022’s most visited UK town. We’re trendsetters don’t-cha-know! 

With its absolutely enormous beach and stunning castle backdrop it comes as no surprise. 

However, locals have found the sudden infamy problematic. Vehicles parked up on grass verges due to car parks hitting their capacity, litter and disruption not far behind. It’s certainly a turn of events, but not one that can cause shock. It’s saddening for sure. But shocking? No. I’m sure there are people that profit from such large numbers of tourists, it isn’t all bad, it never is, since when did news articles give both sides of the story. 

It would be wise to remember the world continued turning, the oceans continued crashing to the clean shores and the bluebells thrived during lockdown. We are the virus the world does not need, these beautiful places are a gift and should be treated as such. If we wish to arrive in paradise we need to do our bit. Pick up our litter. Stick to the path. Take only memories. And if you should leave footprints, be respectful of what’s underfoot. Paradise takes a lifetime to build and only moments to disappear. 

Well, wasn’t that a cheerful post, come back next time for something lighter! 

For the ‘gram’

I feel as if I have fallen into a trap.

A trap where I see a blue scene before me, laid out like a carpet in a forest. The ground is soft underfoot and all about me there is birdsong and the noise of leaves jostled by the wind.

The sun dances among the clouds and I am trapped between the real and the fake. 

The bluebells I am here to see have long been on my mind, I’ve seen photos a plenty online, but it’s through working in gardens where my wandering curiosities first started. Their delicacy and almost ‘Alice in Wonderland’ characteristics have drawn me to their woodland homes. I’m always a bit late to the party when it’s bluebell season and arrive only to find they are again lost for another year. Today, it happened, we took two hours out of our ‘day off’ and headed for Norsey Wood, Essex. A very small and free car park found us unbelievably lucky when someone left and we claimed their parking spot. Even more so lucky that it is bank holiday Monday.

The sun joined us for 30 minutes and laughed while I darted from copse to thicket trying to get the perfect image to capture what this moment meant to me. It was only when I sat down, that I realised my camera was the intruder today. That the feeling of wonder I had couldn’t be captured in one single photo. The bench I sat on was dedicated to a man who the world had lost, it looked out over a vast network of fallen trees, fresh ferns and the springing blues. My eyes picked up movement in the trees, a grey squirrel, perched on a log. Watching me, the intruder. I raised my camera and in a flash it was gone. I cursed myself for missing the shot, but what I really found myself frustrated with is using my lense to capture what my eyes could have done for me. 

It is hard to keep parts of your life offline when you are running social media pages and even more so when current trends dictate how well your sites can do. Bluebells are the joie de vivre right now, as they should be, but sometimes I wish it was me on a bench, camera away, enjoying the moment. The real vs the fake. I, myself, would find it hard to believe that I put these photos of bluebells out into the online world to share my experience rather than some feeble attempt to gain new followers. And yet here we are, talking to you, a blog reader, who may or may not decide to come back based on this one piece of writing. 

Ultimately should I choose to follow the interest of the day, you’ll get a marvellous view of the world seen a million times over and I’ll be another carbon copy blogger who has no real personality of her own.

So, from now on, not taking the picture will be just as important as taking it. To live in the moment I’m in rather than heading to the next one to please the ‘gram’ and asking myself do I like this? With clarity, the trap springs open, so I can watch the squirrels and wait for the sun to come back to me. Camera away. Memories intact.

The bluebells are wonderful.