It feels a bit odd posting this blog about my latest artist book, ‘Autumn. A walk on the line’ as I’ve only just completed the Winter version of this walk and I’m just about to start on the next book.

This is part of an on-going project exploring the landscape along ‘The Line’. A transect through my local landscape from the working Coldstones Quarry to the disused Pelstone Cross Quarry, travelling from North Yorkshire to West Yorkshire. The walk itself is about 20 miles, depending on the exact route which is largely determined by my desire to avoid livestock! On this walk that included a field full of very large and lithe horses and a field of far too curious cows. The big, Friesian ones.

Those diversions though meant that I saw different aspects on this version of the walk (I’ve already done a Spring walk) and I got a close up look at the ruins of Dob Park Lodge, a dilapidated building that was already in ruins at the time the painter J. M. W. Turner sketched views of the lodge from the northern banks of the River Washburn around 1816.

I meant to make a record of the weather on this walk, but in truth it was fairly benign. It was very windy at The Coldstones Cut, the large land art form that overlooks the quarry, but then it always is being the highest point around. There were some very dark rain clouds and plenty of showers off to the north, but all I got were rainbows, sunshine and dramatic views.

The photographs in the book are taken on a Lomography reusable plastic camera using Kodak ColorPlus ISO 200 film. At each mile I simply point the camera at the view ahead. I have no control over exposure, focal lengths etc, so the images in some respects reflect the real conditions on the day. If the light was low the pictures are dark.

Following my Winter walk (completed in full sun and on a clear, blue sky day) I’ve been pondering when exactly I should do my walks, at what point in the season, realising that I could walk on two consecutive days and be walking in two different seasons. I think I’ll work out a mid point that reflects both the astrological and meteorological seasons.