Do you have a place, be it real or imaginary, that just haunts your mind?  You think of it, and you are transported there instantly.  The smells of the grass, the sounds of the river, and the odd car driving past you wondering what the heck you are doing?  Hepple is my special place.  It is a place where I feel at peace and that all is right with the world.

I’m thinking back to an article I wrote a couple of years ago called Hepple for Photos, Not Gin. I was with my father and had my Canon 6D Mark II with the 16-35mm F4.0 lens and the 70-300mm zoom lens. This year, however, I had my X100F with just the 35mm f2.0 equivalent lens, and I was with Killian, who, surprisingly, was a little tired and decided to curl up on the back seat for a snooze. His loss…

This is the place, this stretch of road, that I have been looking forward to for 2 years. The weather was clement, and I can assure you that the place is still as beautiful as ever. I wasn’t going to have the choice of lenses this time; I would have to see the scene in 35mm and make do with it. No zooming, no switching lenses—just a little constraint. And you know what? I was fine with that!

The lack of zooming and my sleeping son allowed me to walk around the area a little more, exploring under the tree at the end of the road and at the bottom of the hill.  These were views that I had not seen before.  It only goes to show that we might think we know a place, even in our memories, but it still has so much more to offer us.

I parked just before the bridge, as I usually do. Everything was still in place: the stiles, the trees, the river—just as I had pictured it in my mind. It’s when looking at the countryside like this that I am convinced there is a creator behind all this creation. The beauty of it didn’t just happen by chance.

The noises were made by the flowing of the river and the breeze in the trees.  I had this feeling of calm.  I could take photos of that place every day and not get tired of it all.  I might even go so far as to say I could have died here and died a happy death.  I had found my peace.

Killian had found his peace too and was still asleep in the car.  A micro sieste, he said.  He might be 25, but he reminded me of the small boy who was once my son. 

I can’t be the only person on this earth to feel this?