anthony galvin

TAGGED: PHOTO

Best photos of 2023

Bridleway near Plumpton Wood, Northamptonshire

Over the last few years we’ve been lucky to be able walk together before work. Remote working, a local school runs and an energetic dog combined to make this part of our weekday routine. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen so much now - new job and new school.

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Northern Lights from Maidford, Northamptonshire

For a brief moment, even South Northamptonshire was transported to the edge of the article circle. We took the kids up to the top of a hill near the house but it was too cloudy, and after an hour or so we took them home to warm up. A few hours later, pretty much in the middle of the night I went back out and grabbed this photo.

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Hovden, Hardangervidda, Norway

A day on the slopes, with old friends. Magic.

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A deer runs across the lake at Vinje, Hardangervidda, Norway

Looking out across the lake from my friends study. Amongst all the stillness a frenzy of legs and energy.

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Blue sky day in Morzine

Spring in the mountains. Blue sky and another chance to scoot around, this time with the family.

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Looking down on Avoriaz

About 20 years ago I came to visit Richard and stayed in what was then just an old barn. He took me up here and showed me this view. Still magic.

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Emma & Violet (Snr) at the Coronation Street Party

I didn’t take this picture, but it’s one of my favourites. Emma and her grandmother - Nanar Violet. Violet had seen 5 monarchs in her lifetime and this coronation was just before her 100th birthday. Sadly no longer with us, she remains an inspiration to us all.

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Lower Shuckburgh, Northamptonshire

Lush, green, rural middle of England.

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Following the family cycling round Rutland Water, Rutland

A day out. Cycling round and round. This was my view for most of the day. Pootling round Rutland Water is a great reminder that adventures can happen in your backyard.

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The church at Rutland Water, Rutland

Growing up in Rochdale there were lots of tales about the villages at the bottom of the reservoirs (Hollingworth Lake and Greenbooth in particular). But Rutland Water takes that to a new level.

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Amsterdam Harbour

One of the few work trips of the last year or so, and a scorching hot evening in Amsterdam.

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Path over the fields, Northamptonshire

When I'm away working in a city, it's this sense of space I really miss. Especially on a sunny day.

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Emma & Hazel, before the circus at Evenly Wood Gardens

Who doesn't love a burger before a night at the ~~opera~~ circus.

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Arriving at the Bothy on Ulva after 2 hours of walking

The most memorable walk of the year, at the start of our stay on one of the most magical islands that makes up our nation of islands.

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Rain stops play. Stewkley, Buckinghamshire

Amazingly we got back on and finished the game.

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Towcester, Northamptonshire

It often feels like the people responsible for planning in South Northamptonshire are determined to erase the unique history and character of this part of the world. Luckily they haven't quite succeeded.

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Cold view from Maidford, Northamptonshire

Looking along the valley over to metropolis that is Adstone (population 65).

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#photo #retrospective #2023 #iphone

30/01/2024 permalink

Best photos of 2022

Looking towards the long meadow on the edge of Maidford

There's only a couple of paths out of the village and the one through the long meadow heading North out of Maidford is the one we probably walk most often. I often try and capture the meadow on camera, but it rarely comes out as it looks to the naked eye. (6 January 2022)

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V+H at Burton Dasset

Burton Dasset Hills Country Park is, as the name suggests a hilly place. I love the way this picture captures the sense of achievement of V+H making it to the top of one of the short, sharp, climbs. (6 February 2022)

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H

All style, before breakfast. (23 Feburary 2022)

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From the top of a run at Edland, Telemark, Norway

The weather on the first day of a short trip to Norway was perfect, with crystal clear light. This captures the view looking down to the village below the small ski resort of Edland. (4 March 2022)

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V+H pushing their bikes, Betws-y-Coed, Snowdonia

We had a few days away in North Wales. The weather was as you might expect, but the girls were still keen to get out of their bikes - even if they were occasionally defeated by th epic gradients. (7 April 2022)

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Badby Woods, Northamptonshire

Spring in a bluebell woods, when everything is full of life and colour - and the whole forest is full of birdsong. (8 May 2022)

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With Emma at Songs By The Lake

Out. Out! (4 June 2022)

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H taking a photo, Summer Solstice

Heading home from dinner we stopped to enjoy the sunset, and take a few photos. H wanted to take one as too. (21 June 2022)

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Barn Owl Demonstration at Holdenby House

I sometimes spot barn owls on the quiet lanes around the village, but it's nearly always just for a moment in the headlights. On a baking hot day we watched this amazing owl do a few laps of the grounds before it headed back to the shade. (9 July 2022)

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Commonwealth Games Athletics, Alexander Stadium Birmingham

Even at the early morning qualifying heats 'Brum' put on a show. (3 August 2022)

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On the edge of Maidford

Beyond the long meadow and through the wheat field. (15 August 2022)

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Beynac-et-Cazenac, Dordogne, France

The river Dordogne is a canoeing and paddleboard paradise. I snapped this whilst we stopped to catch our breadth climbing up to the hilltop village of Beynac. (25 August 2022)

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Louvre Museum, Paris

The Louvre is a brilliant place, full of amazing art works - but the crowding and the crush around this particular painting feels bizarre and unwelcome (though not a surprise). (28 August 2022)

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Cycling along a byway

By the end of the summer Northamptonshire looked like a desert, but some of the dusty byways make great family cycle tracks. (25 September 2022)

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Maidford

The moon and clouds made it look like someone was trying to send smoke signals from a neighbouring village. (3 October 2022)

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Manchester Art Gallery (15 October 2022)

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Family Portrait Dunwich Beach, Suffolk

Somehow captures the ridiculous nature of a Galvin family trip to the seaside. (27 October 2022)

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Lois Weedon, (9 November 2022)

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Looking down the valley

The view from our bedroom "down the valley" seems to refresh every morning. I love this view, but it's not always easy to capture a good photo. With the naked eye you look past the neighbours houses, but the camera always seems to highlight the rooftops and garages. (13 November 2022)

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Cold walk, Maidford

One of those cold winter mornings when the sun doesn't seem like it's going to make it above the horizon, and you know the temperature is going to steadfastly refuse to get to zero. (16 December 2022)

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#photo #retrospective #2022 #iphone

14/01/2023 permalink

On a blazing hot August day we jumped aboard the Island Lass and headed off for a boat trip round the Treshnish Isles, past Fingal’s Cave and onto Staffa

After spending a few days on Ulva the crowds on the boat and island felt a bit overwhelming to start with. Despite the good weather it was still pretty choppy on the way into the landing at Staffa. It’s hard to imaging the portly Dr. Johnson arriving in 1773.

#islands #staffa #holiday #scotland #boats #photo

2016-09-05 21:16:05 GMT permalink

After our week on Ulva, back to our usual Mull haunt of Treshnish

Fabulous accommodation. Great weather, the best beaches in the world, amazing local food and swimming in the cold, cold sea.

#mull #scotland #treshnish #holiday #photo #islands #beaches

2016-09-05 21:16:02 GMT permalink

Late summer and we headed northwards again. To Ulva, a place we’d visited but never spent more than a few hours at a time.

People first started living on the island more than 7000 years ago. At the height of the kelp boom in the 19th Century 600 people called Ulva home. It’s a much quieter place now with just a few residents. The passenger ferry runs 6 days a week at the height of summer and stops at 5pm. There are no paved roads. No street lights. Little phone signal.

The week at Fisherman’s Cottage will live long in the memory. Great food from The Boathouse. The amazing landscape and weather. Walking through abandoned villages. Stumbling across a family of red deer. Watching curlews and buzzards.

It’s easy to think about places like Ulva as period pieces or as a tourist destination. Our stay made me realise that it’s much more complex. Ulva is a private island and a real place.

We’ve been coming to the Inner Hebrides for about 5 years. The relationship between the ecology, animals and people who live on and around the islands is complex. Each time we visit, I understand a little more.

#scotland #islands #ulva #holiday #family #hebrides #photo

2016-09-05 21:03:05 GMT permalink

Went out last night to try and grab a picture of an otter. I failed. But the view across the bay was pretty good. 

#photo #ulva #sunset #calm #holiday #scotland #islands

2016-08-23 21:05:59 GMT permalink

It’s becoming a bit of a family tradition. Piling the car high and driving northwards for our summer holidays. Usually to Mull, for a family holiday in and around the islands off the North West coast of Scotland. With a few detours on route, this year via the Northumbrian coast.

The holiday and the journey have become a bit of a ‘yardstick’, a marker against which we measure the year - a mid-point where it’s possible to glimpse just far enough forwards and back to take stock of another years temporal changes and what might lie ahead.

And perhaps the islands are a useful tool for this. Although they’re a permanent fixture for the people and animals who inhabit them, for us the islands are a temporary respite, a fleeting viewfinder that helps us see more clearly. There’s a liminal quality to our visits, not permanent but through repeated stays more than just temporary.

#scotland #photo #holiday #family #mull #islands

2015-09-22 21:49:45 GMT permalink

Missing (these islands).

Saturday morning, doing the things you have to do (buying clothes for the children in Milton Keynes) and the dissonance with our recent trip to Coigach is rising up in my consciousness and beating me over the head. Robert Macfarlane, in his brilliant debut proposed the concept of ’Mountains of the Mind’. The Summer Isles are firmly embedded as one of my haunting mental islands. 

#scotland #coigach #photo #islands #view #sea

2014-05-27 12:31:40 GMT permalink

Sunrise.

Winter time. Cold. Dark, and paradoxically, in these northern latitudes, a perfect opportunity to watch the warmth of a winter sunrise without having to rise too early. A run of cold clear weather means that most mornings a pinkish, orange light spreads across the cold dark fields, leaves fringed with frost reflect the sudden glare and for a moment the sky flames.

#photo #sunrise #stewkley #orange #morning

2014-01-21 11:08:00 GMT permalink

Mountains of the mind.

We’ve been back in Buckinghamshire for a couple of weeks, but the Isle of Mull - the mountains, beaches and views are still travelling with me.

Sun set from Treshnish. Looking out over Eigg, Rum and Skye.

#scotland #photo #mull #sunset #mountains

2013-07-07 21:26:38 GMT permalink

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