(There are photos in this entry, scroll down to see them! Or if you want to see them all, without reading any of my ranting, view the Surrey gallery)

If anyone ever tells you that England is hilly, or mountainous, or in any way a fine example of Mother Nature’s extremities don’t believe them. We have hills, yes. We even have 2 mountains! We had a hurricane once, and the occasional ‘Did you feel that?’ tremor.

That’s fine though, as we don’t deal very well with the rest of the world’s idea of extremes. As we saw a few weeks ago, more than a few inches of snow and we become house-bound, fearing for our survival, and wondering when the roads will be clear enough to get food, or fresh water.

Our positively dull geography isn’t necessarily ugly however! You just have to scale down your expectations a little. We don’t have any 2-mile deep holes, like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. We don’t have beautiful, snowy peaks like France. We do have grass. And trees. And sunsets… and cows…You know, those things every temperate nation has by default!

So today, we went for a ramble around the hills — Leith Hill and Box Hill — of Surrey. Well, we rambled a little, and drove most of the way. We also picked our way over Headley Heath, where for some reason or another there was a small herd of Highland Cows roaming the prickled pastures. 15 matted long-haired, orange cows just happened to also be there — from what I gathered, they were touring the country, going from heath to pasture to grove. Words can’t really describe how big these guys are (at least if you’re British, because they’re by far the biggest native creatures we have — no elephants here!), so the term BRUTE will have to do. They’re about 10 feet long (3 meters), and 6 foot tall. They are BIG. Like two Pavarottis. Vast.

Anyway… we didn’t get too close, but I did manage to get two rather nice pictures of our very own wooly mammoths:

And then a few steps closer…

He looked pleased to see me…

I won’t spam your screen with photos, so if you want to see more, they’re over here in the Surrey collection.

BUT, here is my favourite landscape photo of the day, taken from the ‘highest point in South England’, a gothic tower atop Leith Hill. It really is a lot better when you see it full-size… buy a print, and I’ll prove it to you!

The photo I’m sharing today is a photo taken from the highest point in South England,Leith Hill in Surrey. It’s a hill just south west of London that commands an awesome view of the landscape around it.

Atop the hill is some kind of ancient Gothic tower where you can take some of the best photos in all of England! This photo itself was taken from the base of the tower — I loved the light, and the family having a nice picnic, obviously enjoying the lovely, unseasonal sunshine!

If you like this photo, feel free to poke around the rest of my photo collections!

This is a post for Skywatch Friday.

This photo was used in another entry on my blog, but I’m going to write a little bit more about it — and, also, you might want to just look at pretty photos, rather than trawl through a whole blog entry. Though, there’s a podcast, if you want to listen to a Brit rambling on about not much in particular, and another pretty photo of Venice.

Anyway, the photo, taken in October 2008 from the banks of the river Arno in Florence. I think I’m standing on Ponte Vecchio, unique in its age and incredibly good condition. Famously, Hitler spared the bridge, when all other bridges were destroyed. Possibly because it’s so beautiful, and so full of charm, lined almost exclusively today with jewellery shops.

It’s 900 years old, in its current form, and there’s been a bridge there in some form for over a thousand years.

Enjoy the photo; it’s a rather remarkable sky, suitable for Skywatch Friday!

I’m afraid all you get this Sunday is some pretty photos. It’s currently my father’s birthday and it was my brother’s birthday yesterday; tomorrow it’s mine! Three days ago it was my aunt’s, and in three days it’s my great aunt’s. Did August have some kind of significance for my family…? Why were we all conceived in the last week of August?!

Wait, wasn’t August named after the greatest of the Roman Emperors, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus? A coincidence…?

Anyway! Two photos — one of the low-in-the-sky full moon last night, and one from where we went picnicking this afternoon. I don’t ever recall seeing so many bluebells up on the heaths here, but perhaps I’ve just not caught them at the right time before. The hills were swathed in bluebells; festooned in purple blooms!

Tomorrow is my birthday. I might have some fun (cute?) photos for you.

I go now to eat more cake. To prepare myself for tomorrow — line my stomach, y’know? — whereupon I will continue to gorge myself with smoked salmon and chocolate and one of grandmother’s Special Creations… I might just have to blog about it, like last time.

In an attempt to spice things up a little, I’m going to be podcasting a few blog entries — they’ll simply be an unabridged reading of the entry, possibly with a variety of retarded localised accents to make things interesting. I have no idea if it’ll work well or at all but I may as well give it a try — perhaps continue surfing the web while I read to you in the background? Forgive the vanity to your right… but I have to get my kicks somehow.

I can’t do a very good Italian accent, so don’t laugh! Fast forward to 3:40 if you want to just hear the ‘exciting’ bit with the shitty Italian accent, and a hint of Dan Brown-esque American storytelling…

Photographers have it easy compared to our painter comrades. We both deal in luminance and colour, tone, texture and saturation, but at the end of the day painters start with a blank canvas and nothing but the camera of their mind’s eye. Some painters will probably tell you that it makes their life easier, being able to create anything their imagination conjures up. Surely though, controlling the minuscule movements of mixing pigment and the brush itself is infinitely more difficult than raising the shutter on a camera. Then there are those that claim photography is harder — you can only work with what you’ve been given. There is some leeway of course: trickery of the eye and your ability to move props and pose models, but at the end of the day, that’s all you have: you can’t magic a dragon out of thin air.

Photography is all about working with what you’ve got. There is a small amount of knowledge that you need to know before you can operate a camera but we’re talking 3 or 4 simple equations — and the ability to push down a button. Point, and shoot. You can affect how much light enters the camera and that’s it. It’s because of this simplicity and the switch-over to digital cameras that we’re now swamped with thousands of photographers; you, your mother and her mother can be a photographer. It’s no surprise then that selling photos has also become a lot harder: there are more photos in circulation and thus it’s harder to be seen. You can still get lucky, but more than likely your only chance to make money today is as a stock or paparazzi photographer. Like almost every art form it’s one big labour of love: you pray that one day you’ll become the next Monet or Ansel Adams but chances are you won’t.  There are so few rich artists, it’s depressing.Whether it’s due to a lack of talent or saturation of the market I don’t know. What I do know is the one thought that courses through the mind of every person that’s made art their life-long dream: will I only be famous after I die?

To separate themselves from the pack, to stand out, artists try to be different. ‘Yet another photo of some daffodils’ isn’t quite as appealing as ‘Exploding daffodils in the bedroom of the woman that broke my heart’. Almost every photographer you’ve heard of or seen today will have been unique — that’s what it takes to not sink into the mire of boring, formulaic photographers, your voice forever unheard, your view of the world unseen.

It’s all about chasing the perfect photo. Like storm-chasers, train-spotters or groupies chasing the perfect tornado, rare train or celebrity photographers must try so, so hard to get the perfect photo.  Place yourself one centimeter to the left and you might ruin the entire photo. You might have to wait for a cloud to cover the sun to get the perfect light conditions, or even wait for the sun to be in the perfect position before you take the photo. A landscape could be completely average and nondescript at midday, but the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen at 5pm as the sun begins to set.

Photographing people is another beast entirely: the merest flick at the corner of a girl’s lips might make or break a photo. A glint of sun refracting off her eye could change the meaning and the impact. Is she breathing in or out; are her muscles tensed or relaxed? Even the greatest photographers of all time might take thousands of photos of the same  setup — as the years go by, the ratio of good-to-bad photos will improve but you’re still searching for perfection, and sometimes that’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Fortunately I’m a landscape photographer. I’m quite good at portrait work, I just don’t have the experience — and being a good photographer takes a lot of experience. Landscapes don’t go anywhere: the sun continues to rise, the clouds roll on by — you can keep practicing and practicing, with landscapes. With people… it’s a little trickier. One day I’ll put in the hours and chain down one of my photogenic female friends, get the lights out and go to town! One day.

So there I was in Venice, up a clock tower. It was 3pm and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. Being the geek that I am, I phoned my dad and asked him what time the sun would set — 6pm, 3 hours away. Fine, I can wait 3 hours. I’ve got a book and a bottle of water. There are all sorts of pretty tourist girls swanning around that I can chat to, and take photos of (with their own cameras, of course!) Two hours pass, it starts to get dark, my pulse quickens. I dart around the tower, surveying how different Venice looks in the fading light, looking for the perfect angle for the perfect photo.

‘The tower will be closing in 10 minutes, please take the elevator back down.’

Shit. I smile and nod at the Italian, my mind quickly working through the available solutions: I wasn’t about to head back down the tower after waiting for two hours! It wasn’t a big tower, and there weren’t any obvious dark corners. I looked up and wondered if I could wedge myself inside the bell itself. Maybe in films… but not here in real life. I was out of time and only one option remained: climb out one of the windows and cling to the wall. They do it in films… they inch themselves along a thin ledge…

The Italian usher was slowly walking around the tower, shooing people into the elevator. I only had 30 seconds to decide — wuss out and waste two hours of my life, or… chase the photo. I jumped onto the windowsill and looked down — Shit — I turned around and inched backwards until my toes were on the ledge — Crap — I reach to the left and grab the edge of the next portal — Phew — I’m safe for now, but the pounding of my heart against the ancient brick wall would suggest I’m still in in a wee spot of bother. Finally, the sound of the descending elevator! I slide myself along the ledge, my feet now splayed like a ballet dancer’s and pull myself back inside.

There I am, all alone and king of the hill! I camped out for another hour, constantly assessing the landscape, sizing up the prey, waiting to strike. An hour later, I struck gold — a full moon! A total fluke, but completely deserved. I pulled out the camera, struck a pose not unlike a war-time sniper and… wait! A big ship too! Click. Bang!

That’s how I chased my perfect photo of Venice. It’s not a stereotypical view of Venice but I challenge you to find another like it.

It was getting cold and I had no food; I was out of water and thirsty. I packed up quickly and pushed the call button on the elevator. Nothing. I pushed it again. Still nothing. I looked out through a window and grinned in the darkness, wondering if it was possible.

To be continued…

This is a photo that was actually taken about 15 minutes before my last Skywatch Friday entry (spot the roof of the building below in the other photo!) This is one of the few times that a photo has actually captured both the beauty and the gentle illumination of the clouds accurately. Normally what you see in person, while striking, doesn’t actually look like the photos you take — photos of sunsets are usually overexposed or burned out, swamped in yellow light. It might not be unpleasant to look at, but it probably doesn’t look a whole lot like the sunset you actually experienced!

This one though… this sunset is perfect. Every time I look at it I want to be back in Florence, standing on the Ponte Vecchio bridge — at over 1000 years old, by far the oldest structure I’ve ever stood on. I want to walk through the old, dilapidated, rustic streets. I want to kick back in one of the lovely pizza parlours with some olives and a bottle of Chianti — and of course, some crusty bread, oil and balsamic vinegar.

I look forward to sharing a few more photos from my trip to Italy with you all, my fellow sky-watchers!

This year I’ve planned to travel three times but due to a variety of unfortunate circumstances, I’ve ended up sitting on my ass going slowly stir-crazy for eight (8!) months. I’ve not left the country since Italy last October.

In February I was meant to go to Wales — a tour of the coast, from Cardiff to Pembrokeshire, up to Aberystwyth and finally a day or two under the shadow of Snowdonia, the highest mountain in England and Wales! I booked plush hotel rooms and cute, romantic B&Bs. I worked on my cardiac fitness through a strict training regime. I even dug out the dusty Sebby Sex Manual that hadn’t seen active use since university. AND THEN… the girl cancelled two weeks before we were due to leave. Bugger.

In March there was meant to be an epic coming-of-age trip to the Isle of Skye (in Scotland) with my American cousin Mike. But he broke his leg in a cycling accident (I told him exercise wasn’t healthy, but did he listen, nooo…)

And in April I was meant to go to Ireland… but my host, Irish Dave, was held up in Boston (damn those Americans). I’ve always wondered if all those Davids are bothered by the prefixes they get lumbered with: Fat, Small, Irish, Scottish. I’m often glad that I got lumbered with a 9-letter name (and 35 letters in total… thanks, mum and dad). If nothing else, at least my name is unconventional.

Anyway, May has come and gone (it’s birthday season for our family, so it’s hard to excuse myself to travel), and now it’s June. Never have I felt more ready to travel! My fingers scream at me every time I sit down to type and at night my eyes ache, even when shut. Then there’s the matter of overall fitness — it can’t be good to sit around on your ass for two-thirds of a year, right? I’m amazed that when I do travel, I manage to walk for two weeks without collapsing once — though the regular pizza and gelato breaks probably help…

With that whine out of the way, I can now tell you that I’m going to the Faroe Islands! And there’s no girl, cousin or prefixed Dave involved with the arrangements! The Faroes are a small cluster of islands half way between Scotland and Iceland, i.e. in the middle of frickin’ no where, with a grand total of 49,000 wind-swept citizens. The biggest city, Torshavn, has 13,000 people — but the rest of the population is spread out over the archipelago of 18 islands and 120 towns and villages. The smallest town has a population of… 1. The average temperature at the height of summer, in case you were wondering,  is 11 degrees Celsius. But it rarely goes below freezing, what with it being surrounded by lots and lots of water which in turn is under the effect of the Gulf Stream. It’s damp all year round; just how I like it!

Why am I going? Because it’s the most beautiful place in the world. The National Geographic magazine called it the ‘most appealing place in the world’, ahead of the Azores, Bermuda and Hawaii — and if the National Geographic say it’s pretty, who am I to argue?

The main problem is actually getting there. Being, officially, part of the Danish Kingdom, you can fly there from Copenhagen all year round. From the UK you can only fly there during the summer months, and there’s only 1 or 2 flights a week! There’s also the problem of fog. There’s lots of damn fog. It’s not uncommon for there to be too much fog to land the plane, in which case you’re diverted to Iceland for a few days. Assuming you make it to the Faroes in one piece, you then have to find somewhere to stay — tourism isn’t a big thing there, what with there being almost nothing to do, except look at rocks and stuff. I think there are no more than 10 hotels in the Faroes.

Fortunately, I shan’t be staying in an over-priced hotel! I have a friend that I can stay with (God bless World of Warcraft…) and he has a boat to get around with. He’s also an enthusiastic photographer, so I hope he’ll be able to show me all of the sights. He keeps mentioning under-water caves, which I assume are dangerous little things you can visit on your boat while the tide’s out. In fact, I remember some TV episode of ‘Dramatic Reenactment Life Savers’ where a couple of explorers got stuck in such a cave after the tide came in…

Such photographic opportunities leads me into a little business venture I thought of in the shower this morning. My hands were working their way over the rolling, English hillocks of my chest and stomach/paunch when my Jew-sense started tinglin’. My nose actually twitched and my hands stopped moving while I turned the thought over. I have a thoroughly un-Jew nose, which I am normally grateful for, but there are times when I wouldn’t mind it being a bit bigger. Anyway…

The idea is: could I possibly sell personalised landscapes? I was thinking of a beautiful Faroese landscape, with me standing in the corner holding up a piece of paper with your name on it. Like this:

Only it’ll be a prettier landscape, and it’ll be your name instead of ‘SEB’ — or, heck, you can choose your own message. ‘[YOUR NAME] SENT SEBASTIAN TO PROSPECT FOR GOLD’ — whatever tickles your fancy! I will also wear your hair band or hat of choice — of which I have many. I will even share my gold-sequinned Minnie Mouse ears, if there’s enough interest (i.e. someone actually buys a Personalised Sebby Landscape). For the right price, I might even dress up in your costume of choice, but bear in mind that I doubt I can get the fluffy dog suit through customs.

Here are a few photos of the Faroese landscape to whet your appetite. A Personalised Sebby Landscape of similar or even better quality could be yours…!!

(That’s Aurora Borealis — the Northern Lights — which I sadly won’t be able to see during my visit… but they’re pretty, eh?)

Buy your own personalised, amazingly aesthetic Faroese landscape today for only £20!

If I haven’t yet convinced you to buy one (it being a recession and all), I will be demonstrating the wonders of personalised landscapes — and my hairbands — over the next few weeks, before I actually leave (sometime around the beginning of July, I hope). Also, if you have any Nordic/Arctic Circle travel tips, now’s the time to share.

There are lots of pretty photos in this entry. Feel free to scroll down to them if you don’t feel like reading. They’re not my photos though — but you get lots of those next week!

For the rest of the week you’ll likely get more highly interesting (or perhaps boring) posts on the Faroe Islands. If you didn’t know, or you’ve only just discovered the delightfully British realm of my blog, I’m going on holiday on the 13th July — next Monday! I have to admit, when I realised I was leaving in under a week I squealed with both excitement and worry. I think you’re meant to do lot of preparatory work before flying into a cold, rainy, desolate middle-of-nowhere island. A lot of preparation which I’ve kind of skipped doing so far. Oops.

I blame this blog! I’m writing when I should be cleaning my camera lenses! I’m shoving frozen peas down my shorts when I ought to be making sure I have enough clean jumpers (sweaters) to keep me warm!

Anyway, I have done a little research into what will be my home for 17 days (which is an awfully long time to spend in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, I tell you!)

First, a more detailed map.

If you’re wondering how big these islands are, the simple answer is ’small’; the exact answer is: from north to south  it’s 70 miles (113km) and from east to west only 47 miles (75km)! There are 18 islands which have a rather grand total area of 545 square miles (1400km²) — the UK, by comparison, is 94,000 square miles. And the UK is small (the USA is 3.7 million square miles, by the way — you think you have population issues…?) If you click the map, you’ll see where I’m staying — Klaksik — in the the north east, quite close to ‘BORÐOY’. It’s only about 20 miles as the crow flies from the capital Tórshavn but it still takes 50 minutes to drive it (look for the bridges and tunnels between the islands shown by dotted lines, there’s no direct route!)

So I’ll be spending most of my time in a town with a vast population of about 4,500 (the second largest in the country!) The address of where I’m staying is simply the town name followed by a number (’Klaksik 53′) — how cool is that?! If you’re nodding and saying ‘Cool!’ then good on you; that is why I chose the Faroe Islands! There are only a handful of locations like it in the world, and this is the only one that isn’t tropical.

Anyway, the people — they’re like Vikings, with all the braided beards, horned helmets and daunting tallness removed. I’m told I’ll be the tallest person in the country (…!) I will of course obtain photographic proof that they’re all really short (and cute, in the case of the girls, my host hastened to add). They seem to have kept their Scandinavian looks, but thanks to to the occasional rape-and-pillage by Portugese, Spanish and Turkish sailors there are a few darker-skinned and intense-looking people too. Mostly though, they’re just plain short.  Probably due to the inbreeding, if you think about it: 2,000 Viking settlers started it all and almost everyone there today stems from those original bloodlines. First cousins are considered ‘quite distant’ in Faroese terms…

(Incidentally, none of these photos are mine. They all come from Ólavur Frederiksen’s site, a fantastic Faroese photographer.)

There haven’t been any celebrities of International renown (except perhaps for Teitur, a musician) — perhaps on a local or Nordic scale, or if you’re really into ancient Norse texts, you might find some. They’re famous for fishing whales (and their wind-dried sheep) — that’s about it. If you don’t believe me, here’s a list of all their famous people. Leave a comment if you recognise any of them.

On the topic of whales, apparently, if I’m very lucky, I’ll get to participate in a whale hunt! Whaling is part of their culture, their heritage and their livelihood. There aren’t a whole lot of resources in the Faroe Islands; the sea is one of them and whales have provided valuable meat (and blubber!) for centuries. It’s a little sad that it has almost been banned, even though only 950 are caught each year. Is butchering pigs or cows any worse? They’re all mammals…

If only a bloody, sanguine-saturated sea didn’t make for such an awesome photo, eh?

(It was a toss-up between a photo of them jumping jovially through the water, or one of them dead on a beach…)

I won’t actually be killing any whales (I think) — it’s more of an involved process than ‘just’ killing them: there’s a sighting (probably by some ‘official whale scouter’); then the rallying of the whole town (really, the whole town takes part). Then they all jump into boats to hunt and drive them towards the beach. And then… I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to wait and see!

Talking of boats, we’ll have one to get around with. Which is how we’ll get to the tiniest and most remote islands (some of which have a population of… 1) and also how we’ll get to rocks (smaller and less grassy than an ‘island’) that have nothing on them but thousands of puffins. Puffins like these:

It can get a little rough at sea though, which is apparently why we have to stay very close to the coast. If you check the map again and find ‘Suðuroy’ (which we will be visiting), the following video is an example of what the sea can be like during the crossing:

I have a feeling that being able to tread water for 10 minutes might not be all that helpful if we capsize. Hopefully he has life jackets…

Back to the geography: the Faroe Islands are very low-lying (the highest point is only 880m!) but incredibly craggy. Black rock juts out of the short grass and almost nothing grows well there — except for sheep. There are lots and lots of sheep.

Also, I guess because of erosion by both sea and wind, almost every coastline is a cliff. This makes for some terrifying views which I am incredibly eager to photograph. Just look at this:

(Does your stomach flip a little looking down there…?)

And soon, in just 6 days, I’ll be there! Taking photos, hunting whales and eating puffin kebab! Remember, it’s not too late to buy your very own Personalised Faroese Landscape (but it’s probably too late to order in any fancy props, so bear that in mind).

Yesterday we went for an ‘easy walk’.

Well, it was meant to be an easy walk until my hosts — my guides – forgot where exactly where we were going.

<Whispers>

‘It’s just over the next rise…’

‘No, I’m sure it’s over there…’

‘Well, let’s just go all over the mountains. I’m sure Seb will be fine… Look at him, he’s all big and strong and…’

<They think I can’t hear them. But my hearing is heightened in extreme circumstances…>

“Hey guys, what’s happening? My legs are like jelly — they still haven’t recovered after our warm up mountain climb yesterday — and my heart is suggesting in no uncertain terms that to continue would be akin to harakiri. You keep saying our destination is ‘just over there’… it’s been two hours, three chasms, four moraines and a handful of waterfalls…”

‘It is just over here! Come on!’

… (Something tells me they’re enjoying this way too much)…

In the end, it turned out that we’d climbed about a kilometer above our actual destination. But I did get to sit beside a waterfall and watch the fog slowly blow in and lazily fold its way over the hills. Visibility got down to about 5 meters and then… it just blew away. Magical!

Two photos for you this morning — one from about half way up the hill, one from the bottom. I have a bunch of ’snaps’ that I’ll probably share at the end of the trip. Me looking like death, me sprawled out on a rock, me skinny dipping in a pool beneath a waterfall — that kind of thing.

In other news, I’m still not sleeping more than 2 or 3 hours each night. We’re going to try hanging black bags over the windows, see if that helps. I had fish pie last night and it was lovely. Still no whale, still no puffin — but I’ll try to rectify that in the next few days.

Oh, and there’s a wet t-shirt context next Wednesday! I thought those had been outlawed by feminists around the world… obviously not in the Faroes. Yay!

I’ll keep this one short as I want to try and get some proper sleep tonight (I finally have black bags over my bedroom windows!)

The sun finally came out! At least it did in the north east of the archipelago. We used the webcams that are placed all over the country to check — in real-time! To capitalise, we headed up to Vidareidi (from which point we could see Muli, the abandoned town I photographed the other day) and walked south along the coast.

The Atlantic Ocean has never looked quite so alluring. Deep-azure, turquoise, cobalt, midnight, Egyptian — blue! But not the wussy, pale blues of the Caribbean but dark, intense shades.

Also, there wasn’t a single hill in sight. Just lovely, flat coastlines. It looks like the islands were once volcanic (but I’m sure someone (mum?) will take one look at the photos and tell me exactly what kind of rock it is!) Actually, thinking about it, I found a vein of quartz so I’m sure it was once volcanic.

Anyway, two lovely photos from the island of Vidoy (and one of me posing at the end…):

And the bonus photo — me posing on the end of a very, very precarious rock. The fall is about 10 meters. There’s a photo of me losing my balance a few seconds later… but I look petrified, so we’ll just skip past that one…