Winter Routines

November is Ukraine’s most melancholic month. The temperature falls below freezing, and the orange and yellow leaves that make October so picturesque fall on to the street and are trodden into dirty puddles (the Ukrainian word for November, Listopad, means “fall of leaves”). The plain, snowless clouds feel low enough to touch. People discard their colourful autumn clothes and clamber into black and dark grey coats. A cold wind blows stern looks onto our faces – autumn forgotten, the country settles in for an attritional winter.

Photo set: Before the fall

.

Half a dozen photographs that I took in Ukraine this summer - in Khersones (Crimea), Kyiv and Chernihiv.

Highland Games

The Isle of Mull is an island in the Inner Hebrides, a few miles from the coast of western Scotland. On its northernmost point lies Tobermory, an adorable port town which is the setting for the BBC children’s program ‘Balamory’; at the very south of the island, generations of Scottish kings are buried at Iona Abbey. Between its heralded tips are forty square miles of raw nature: tranquil lochs, moody glens and rugged marshland that are dashing even under grey skies.

Lochscapes: the Isle of Mull in photographs

A gallery of photographs taken on the Isle of Mull, and the smaller islands of Staffa and Lunga to its west, in June and July 2009.

Much Ado About Puffins

Atlantic puffins, one of nature’s most charming and eccentric birds, on the Hebridean islands of Lunga and Staffa. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

“What time do you call this?”

In the summer, Atlantic puffins build burrows in Lunga’s cliffs and raise chicks, taxiing out to the ocean several times an hour in search of food and bringing small fish and sand eels home. Looking at this photo, it seems to me that the puffin on the left has returned late and without any fish, a fact which the puffin on the right is less than impressed about.

Isle of Mull gallery: birds

A collection of Mull’s birds. Click on the photographs below to enlarge them.

Isle of Mull gallery: wildlife

Click on the photographs below to enlarge them.

The Storm Before The Calm

Kyiv, June 2009

There is much to enjoy about early mornings in Kyiv: the cool air and peaceful blue tint in the sky (or whimsical snow in winter); the purposeful stomp of expensive shoes on the street as its businesspeople make their way to work; the unflustered rhythms of the metro before it becomes crowded; the melodious whirr of the coffee machine in the kitchen in my office, churning out triple espressos to be sipped before the working day starts. Unfortunately – due to my body’s own unflustered rhythms – ninety-nine times out of a hundred while all this is going on I am still in bed, jabbing weakly at the snooze button on my alarm clock.

Photo set: Kyiv

Some photographs taken in Kyiv, central Ukraine, where I have been working since 2007. Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge them.