Recent Travels
UMBRIA – May 2008
I was assisting landscape photographer David Noton with the running of two workshops of three very full days each. We both drove to Umbria in our own 4x4 vehicles which we used once there for location finding and to transport the 10 members of each workshop, along with the multitude of photographic kit generated by a group of 12 photographers.
Arriving in Umbria in the first week in May and at altitudes of between 600m and 1500m there was a distinct feel of late spring with dawn temperatures typically around 4C and on one morning a ground frost. Summer was to come late this year, with the Alpine flowers very much still in waiting and even at lower levels the meadows of poppies and cornflowers still to make an appearance.
During my 3 weeks enjoying the dramatic and beautiful countryside largely in the Monti Sibillini National Park there was a definite transformation of the seasons, the bright greens of spring giving way to richer and more abundant summer colours.
The variety, scale and captivating beauty of this area give me many reasons to return -indeed I can’t help thinking it could be magnificent in both autumn and winter – but I hope the photographs on the following pages will provide some insight into the valleys, meadows and of course impossibly stacked hilltop settlements of this magnificent region.
