Momentum

Writing any book is a big deal.  Getting twenty odd people to write a book about places and climbing experiences is a really big deal.  Getting twenty odd people to write such a book and peppering it with beautiful, original and high quality crag and climbing action shots is a super big deal.  Fitting it all around work, young families and climbing sometimes seems unrealistic.  But faithful patience is the key.  After probably a good couple of years playing around with the idea of this book, getting some fantastic contributions to the text and, finally, getting a really talented and enthusiastic photographer on board, it really feels like we’re really making good progress and gathering momentum.

Our dedicated photographer – Skyeman, Colin Threlfall – has been instrumental in recent developments.  I approached Colin after seeing a couple of his pictures on UK Climbing – they were amongst the most beautiful I’d ever seen.  I wanted to look at them again and again.  I wanted to have copies of them on my walls at home.  Even more though, I wanted to go inside them and touch the landscapes they reflected.  Precisely the kind of images we want to burst out of our book.  Since initially making contact with him, Colin has been an several “photo missions” each of which has produced the same, beautiful results.  Some of these were solo – to capture the crags in perfect light, whilst on other occasions he had climbers under the lens, capturing some of the climbing adventure on our great high crags.  He’s also taught himself desk top publishing, so we can begin to layout some of the text and photographs and start to bring our vision for the book into a more tangible form. And all of this fitted, voluntarily, around a very busy family life. I’m more determined than ever to reward Colin and everyone else’s contributing efforts with what we all ultimately want – a unique and beautiful book.

As a result of these latest events, we’re entering a new phase in the book’s development.  Adrian Crofton (joint editor), Colin and I have met and played around with various ideas for format and layout – I had no idea so many wonderful and interesting large, hardback photographic books were still being lovingly delivered to the world! Very soon we’ll have a selection of Chapters from our book mocked up in physical form.  The prelimenary results are quite simply stunning.  If we can maintain the standard set for both the text and the images then I firmly believe we can produce a genuine classic. Our next step is to approach potential publishers / funders with this material and add resources (and experience) to our team’s growing enthusiasm.  Without this extra injection we could do it but not on a grand scale.  So much combined effort and creativity is going into this book that only a global audience will do it justice. 

Thanks to Colin’s practical input, seeing the pages laid out for the first time has provided a real impetus to get things moving more quickly again, and it’s created a real faith that we’re onto something really special that soon move rapidly from idea to reality.  My profuse thanks and appreciation to all of you who have voluntarily given us your support to this stage.

So, if any of you are heading out onto the crags listed, summer or winter, rain or shine, then please get in touch to let us know your plans and we’ll see if we can get in-situ to capture the action.  And as ever if you do have good photos of any of the routes thereabouts then please send them to us to review for inclusion.  We’re resigned to a bit of a wait to get it perfect, but we’re also convinced now that the book will happen.

Let’s try and keep this momentum up.

Cheers, Guy