Introduction
Some years ago I met a woman giving away a large pile of walking magazines. She was moving to Austria and we talked about her collection, the UK, and her new home. We agreed Austria was superb, and also on the predictability of Britain. “It’s always the same” she said meaning Great Gable, Cader Idris, Torridon and so on, the routes she had read about for years. You might see the same walk twice, in the same magazine, for summer and winter.
Featured Walks
There’s nothing wrong with that if it helps some people but you’re not interested if you’ve walked there which is a likely scenario after ten or twenty years. I’ve only walked Cader Idris once, incidentally. I’ve been planning to do it again, with this slightly different route, perhaps with a camp at the Cregennen Lakes then a favourite camp site below the Rhinogs. It’s a lovely combination when you have a dramatic long walk then relaxation in the sun with a good coffee breakfast, decent pub dinner and paddle (in this case) on the sands at Llandanwg. I don’t know how you pronounce it either.
It’s also important to consider lesser known walks depending where you live. I lived in Bolton for a short time for my PGCE, and these hills were easily available.
If you’re new to walking I recommend this strategy. Find good places for a summer evening, or a Saturday afternoon, as well as the bigger walks found in National Parks.
Art
The possibility of blending art and the outdoors must be approached carefully. Don’t disrespect, or fail to understand, what the outdoor experience means. As a practice that means landscape photography not graphic manipulation, and not pretending one is the other.
That doesn’t mean you can’t think about the subject more widely and explore a different genre on its own terms. It’s what I do with Conceptual Art, which needs explaining as such. As part of the thinking process you might consider what is sometimes called the postmodern landscape as with the photographs of Stephen Shore, which are interesting although not conventionally beautiful.
The idea is emptiness, artifice, and no meaning, rather than outdoor beauty. My art images, although deeply conceptual, possibly relate to trompe l’oeil and certainly do to surrealism. The point is you can think about it and provided you respect the above, it’s interesting to do so.
I like a good photograph at Torridon and would like to be there but if I’m not, there are other things to think about. This is an interesting read, about experimental art.
Therapeutic
I find it a little underwhelming when a scientific study “proves” the benefits of nature. Does the scientist not walk, so for them it’s a new discovery? Do walkers need confirmation in the form of brain scans, blood pressure readings, or heart rate data? Do doctors not know about it, and never suggest their patients walk a few times every week?
As Bob Dylan said, you don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows. He liked the I Ching, incidentally.
It is interesting however if this encourages people to walk, and might be used in clinical settings, when you read about or listen to this kind of study.