Megaliths and Pinhole Cameras in the Derbyshire Peak District

Recently I have become fascinated and quite obsessed with stone circles and structures from the Neolithic period (and all points forward!).  I live on the outskirts of Sheffield in the UK and the Derbyshire Peak District is 20 minutes away for me .  The Peak District has an abundance of stone circles, ring cairns and burial mounds.  Some obvious, like the “Stone Henge of the North” at Arbor Low, some not so obvious.  The day job makes me lead quite a hectic life, but having the opportunity to visit these sites is for me a chance to slow down.

The extension of this for me is using film and in particular my pinhole camera.  Using a pinhole camera just slows the whole photographic process down so much, as the exposures can be quite long (38 minutes has been my longest to date!)  It gives me a lot of time to appreciate these ancient places and enjoy the peace and quiet.  My continuing project is to photograph these megalithic monuments and their surrounding areas.  Megaliths in the Peak District aren’t the most photogenic, no large stones here, instead, you have low lying stone circles barely 2 foot tall in some cases.  So whilst I have tried to be creative with what I do, I do fail more often than not and end up with a straight photographic record.

The project has been supplemented with some photographs taken on my Bronica ETRS.  You can see more of the project on Flickr – please feel free to leave comments either here or on Flickr.