The first proper Saddleworth outing, and the year's high-water mark for photography. Left trainer, blue, laces gone, canvas faded, on the shore path at Dovestone Reservoir at Greenfield. I set off at half seven and went over the top on the A635, which is a road that wakes you up whatever the season. It were the furthest I'd driven for the register that year and it never once felt like a gamble.
The notebook says the light off the water were crackin' all morning, and it isn't a word I spend lightly, then or now. Four photographs and all four come out, which I believed at the time to be a record, and checking back through the earlier books I can confirm it were. Sat a good while on the stool. Flask conditions excellent. Cheese and pickle.
The note finishes 'Saddleworth wants more of my attention', and it got it — I were back up the Chew Valley in July, and Saddleworth has stayed on the rota ever since. Some places you visit once and tick off. Dovestone I have never felt to be finished with. The trainer itself were modest — canvas faded to a blue you'd struggle to name — but the setting lifted it, and I photographed the setting as much as the shoe, which the book owns up to.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.