Alan Frost | alan frost photography

Hamlet through a pinhole….. but the church doors are closed.

The Dorset hamlet of Affpuddle lies to the east of Tolpuddle, its better known neighbour famous for The Tolpuddle Martyrs, and a mile or so down the road there is another village called Briantspuddle. All three communities form part of the lower reaches of the Piddle valley.

Affpuddle is by far the smallest, warranting in my opinion the title of hamlet, whereas the other two are most certainly villages. Unusually for a hamlet, Affpuddle boasts its own church, St Laurence, which is bounded by the River Piddle on the northern side of the graveyard. A lovely setting.

A feeling of serenity….possibly?

Back on the 28th March I posted ‘A Lone Marker Post – a metaphor perhaps’. This was just five days after Lockdown began in the UK on the 23rd of March. Yesterday I returned to this beach for the first time in well over 3 months and subsequently made the above image.

The Isle of Harris – All things bright and beautiful……

…. all vistas great and small. Yes, I know I have changed one of the words but I have done so for a particular reason.

This blog has been very quiet for the past month. Quite simply I have been away and taken a break from Social Media generally, including a self-imposed news blackout because it’s all just too depressing. How refreshing these decisions proved to be, but that’s a story for another day.

My wife and I have been in Scotland visiting The Outer Hebrides and staying on the Isles of Harris and Lewis, which neither of us have ever had the good fortune to experience before. These islands are stunningly beautiful and dramatic. It is almost impossible not to utter ‘wow’ as great views are likely to greet you at every turn.

Moving along another path raises questions… or does it?

If you have read the last couple of entries on this blog you will know that I have started to ‘play’ with ICM photography. The technique is hardly new but it is new to me. However it is such a change from my usual style it has raised some interesting questions for me to consider.

What’s on the Shelf – The Landscape by Don McCullin

This is the first of what I plan to be a series of entries which I have called ‘What’s on the Shelf’. Hardly original I know, but hopefully self explanatory.

As much as I like making photographs of my own, I also enjoy spending time collecting and reading photography books by people whose work I admire. I think there is a lot to be gained by studying images in a more traditional way. I have to say it’s a real pleasure to dwell on a photograph on the printed page; something which I rarely do when viewings work on a screen, whatever the size. You also get to see a collection of photographs which added together have a story to tell. Each page turned offers a link to the previous page and so on.