As restrictions started to ease and we were allowed to drive short distances again, I arranged to meet a friend for my birthday and run one of my favourite routes on Helvellyn. We met in a pub car park in Patterdale and headed off for a catch-up and a birthday leg stretch.

When we returned, the pub owner had blocked us in. He had parked his truck across the entrance and started telling us we had parked there illegally, that we had ruined his day in some way, and that he intended to ruin ours by keeping us captive. My friend and I thought it was all a bit ridiculous, so we made a cup of tea in my van and picked up the conversation we’d been having on the run, assuming that if we just waited it out, eventually he’d calm down and let us leave.

The pub landlord had other ideas.

After a couple of hours, we tried bargaining with him, but he was angry, stubborn, and not about to back down. I was keen to get home , my parents had planned a birthday dinner for me, so my friend and I decided to call the police. At first, our captor thought we were bluffing, but when we put the cops on speakerphone, he got nervous. It turned out he’d had previous dealings with the police, and the threat alone was enough for him to move his truck and let us go.

It was a weird birthday, but also, at the time, it felt like I had a funny new anecdote to add to the collection. I remember telling the story to my partner, Alice, when we first started dating. I expected her to find it just as funny and lighthearted as I had but instead, she was upset. Very quickly things escalated into a serious argument. She called me out for calling the cops, describing them as “customer service for white people”. I got defensive and pushed back hard against her abolitionist politics. Considering we had only been dating for a couple of weeks, it was all pretty uncomfortable.

But, shamefully, that argument was the beginning of me properly reflecting on, examining, and readjusting my relationship to police and to justice more broadly.

To put things in perspective, my dad was a cop and then a soldier in the Parachute Regiment. My half-brother, who I grew up with, was also in the army. Alongside all the usual copaganda we are fed in this society, I had an extra layer of it wired into my upbringing. Add to that the fact that I had never really sought out close relationships with people from backgrounds different to my own white, middle-class one, so of course I saw police and the military as protectors.

Even when I could see evidence all around me that cops were brutal, abusive, racist, misogynistic, and structurally violent, some part of me still believed they were a necessary part of society. I could post a reel of police brutality on Instagram and caption it “fuck the police”, but the words were empty. Basically just your classic liberal white guy protected by the system and reaping the benefits.

I’m not especially good at tooting my own horn, but one of my better qualities is that I can reflect and change my mind, even when it feels uncomfortable. After that argument with Alice, I got curious. Instead of putting up the defensive wall my upbringing had trained me to build, I started asking questions. Conversations with Alice led to deeper conversations with people whose life experiences were very different from mine. That led to books, documentaries, podcasts, articles. I did what I had never really bothered to do before: I stepped outside my own lived experience and started trying to understand who actually benefits from the existence of police.

Fast forward to last October. I attended a demonstration in Bern, Switzerland. More than 10,000 people gathered and marched in the country’s capital in solidarity with Palestine, and in opposition to the generational oppression, occupation, and genocide inflicted on Palestinians by Israelis and complicit governments and businesses.

I was there with Alice, a friend of ours, and my parents, who were visiting from the UK. Of the five of us, I was the only one who had never been to a march like this. When we arrived in the city there were hordes of militarised police everywhere, as well as plenty of not-so-undercover cops. The demonstration moved steadily towards the parliament building in the city centre. People of all ages and backgrounds were there. At one point we saw two parents teaching their small children of around 5 years old the chant tout le monde déteste la police, which was echoing out through the crowd while the cops barked orders at us over loudspeakers mounted on the front of the parliament building.

As the threats from police escalated, the crowd was redirected back towards the train station where the march had started. That shift put us somewhere near the front of the demonstration. Then the police did what they always do, what they are designed to do, and what they clearly relish doing: they created an extremely violent and oppressive situation.

Dressed like robocops in full riot gear, they rushed the crowd, and entrapped and circled groups of us. They beat people, fired high-velocity rubber bullets, and launched tear gas. I saw the attack commence out of the corner of my eye and, by luck, we were near a tiny shoe repair shop, the only shop on the street that hadn’t locked its door. We managed to get a little refuge inside but for the people still in the street it was brutal. There was blood, tears, screaming. We were trapped there with around 200 other people, kettled by police who used force and threat to intimidate the crowd.

And it all worked on me. I was terrified.

In those moments I could only really focus on myself: my anxiety, my discomfort, my fear. I felt more scared than I ever had before.

After an hour or so, my dad, being an ex-cop, feeling responsible for his family, and being 76 and still recovering from surgery, but also feeling the entitlement of these realities, negotiated to get us out of the kettle. I was also deeply anxious that I had brought my parents into this situation. So I did what felt like my only option at the time and let myself be escorted across the police line and out. Very few people were allowed to leave. Pregnant people, disabled people, and many people for whom the situation was far more anxiety inducing than me, begged to be released from the kettle but it was only a few older white people who were let out alongside me and my mum and dad. Alice stayed put. After hours of entrapment, she was arrested and spent several hours in a police cell.

That led to our second difficult conversation as a couple about police, the law, and our place within this system.

From a position of privilege, I had been able to arrive at a politics that, in theory, rejected police. But before Bern, everything I had read and absorbed about “the force” had remained intellectual. It was based on words written by people who understood far more deeply than I did why policing exists and what it is really for.

In the days after the demonstration, I was shaken. I felt that what had happened was violent, traumatic, and unjust, but I still processed most of it through the lens of my own personal experience. I did what white people so often do: I centred myself and treated my own fear as the main event. My first response was, in reality, tone-deaf.

Luckily, Alice did what she does so well, and did the work to help me see the big picture. Once again I was forced to confront the fact that because of my position in the world, I still had a lot of work to do if I wanted my response to the violence of policing to be grounded in reality rather than in white panic.

The first thing I had to reckon with was that I had not actually stood by what I claimed my values were. Even though I now say that I hate policing and everything it represents, I was still willing to grant it legitimacy the moment I was scared enough. I crossed that police line because I was given the option to. That option was made available to me because of how I look, where I come from, and how legible I am to the state as someone worth sparing.

Alice told me that while she was being held in the cell, she was detained alongside women from Syria and Palestine, some of them undocumented. People whose lives could be materially, and perhaps permanently, worsened by that arrest. That mattered far more than my fear. I came to understand that in situations like that, it is the responsibility of people like me to stand in solidarity with people who cannot safely absorb the full force of state violence. White people do not get to arrive at these demonstrations, enjoy the moral feeling of having shown up, and then disappear the moment things become dangerous for us. Our job is to hold the line, and not leave others to take the consequences alone.

That was something I had not understood going into that situation, and something I should have educated myself about beforehand. I walked away from a terrifying but temporary experience. For others, the consequences could be life-changing: detention, criminalisation, deportation, being pushed back towards places where their lives may already be at risk. I have to live with the shame of not standing in solidarity but others had to live with far more than shame.

The second realisation was that, for the first time, I felt something of what police violence actually is. I had always carried, however unconsciously, the belief that because of my race and class the police were there to protect me. But in Bern I felt in very physical terms that the police protect only the system. They are there to keep the current order in place. To protect the interests of the powerful, and to use violence against anyone who threatens, resists, or simply suffers under this system.

Obviously, marginalised communities experience that violence far more routinely and far more intensely than I ever have. But that experience forced me to grasp, in my body and not just in my politics, that nobody is actually safe. The police are not trained or designed to protect “the people”. The fear and unfairness I felt in those few hours inside that kettle are the ordinary experience of policing for countless people whose race, migration status, poverty, or political position place them in the path of the state every day. People live with that pressure and violence all the time.

It is a brutal reflection of inequality that all of this could function as a learning experience for someone like me while being violently life-altering for someone else.

Why does any of this matter? I started thinking about writing this a couple of months ago, around the time police in Minnesota started shooting white people in the face. Horrific as that was, it also sparked a grim kind of hope in me. Finally, I thought, here was something many white people might not be able to explain away. Here was a visible example of the violence that marginalised communities have always known the police are capable of. Here was a chance, maybe, for more white people to understand that these institutions are not built to protect us.

It could have been a moment of political clarity. Better late than never. A moment when the majority group in society might finally understand that the violence of the state persists because we allow it to. Police violence is not something that happens on rare, extreme occasions, it is not the result of a few bad officers. It is sustained because enough of us, especially white people, continue to believe that the system exists for our benefit. And because we benefit from that arrangement, however unevenly, we tolerate the violence it inflicts on others. The reality is, as white people, we need that violence to preserve the world as it is.

But nothing really happened. Nothing really changed . No meaningful organising, no widespread refusal, by the people who are historically protected by the system. Just as there is so rarely meaningful resistance to the everyday violence of the state in the countries you and I all live in. And at its heart, I think that is because so many of us are still invested in the fantasy that the system will protect us. It is hard to face the fact that the institutions governing our lives were never built in our collective interest and that, given the slightest excuse, they will shoot us in the face too.

I didn’t want to write all of this down to get deep into the theory of police abolition, restorative justice, anarchism, or alternatives to policing. There are people far more qualified than me to do that work, and you should go and read them. Read Angela Davis. Read Alex Vitale. Read Mariame Kaba. Read Ruth Wilson Gilmore. I’m writing this because I wanted to use my own small online corner, one that I imagine is still populated mostly by people who look a lot like me, to try to plant a seed of doubt in the system. The same way Alice planted one in me when I told her that story about being trapped in a car park in the Lake District on my birthday.

It is our responsibility to look after each other because no one else is going to do it for us. And part of that responsibility is divesting from the systems that govern through violence. If we continue to legitimise policing or call on it for our own comfort, then we remain tied to the violence it produces. I understand now that there is a direct line between me calling the police to solve my small inconvenience in a car park and the wider machinery of coercion, abuse, imprisonment, assault, and death that policing makes possible. If I call, talk to, or in any way legitimise the existence of the police I have to be comfortable that I am complicate in their violence.

If we want that violence to end, then we have to break our attachment to the institutions that carry it out.

The only violence is state violence. ACAB.

I was reminded of this recently as I tried to get to grips with a roll of Harman Phoenix 200.

I shot my first roll of the stuff a couple of years ago. I didn’t think about it at all, just popped it into a point-and-shoot, snapped away, and because I was on holiday I did what I rarely do and sent it off to a lab. The scans came back unusable. Proper crunchy, weird colours, just total shit. I probably just exposed them all wrong but I wrote the film off and vowed never to load a camera with it again.

As it turns out, curiosity and some cheap expired rolls got the better of me recently.

When I actually took the time to read up on the film and see how other people were using it, I realised there were a few pretty key things I’d ignored. It really wants to be rated at 100 ISO, not 200. It’s very grainy. It has very little dynamic range. And crucially, because of how it’s made, it doesn’t have the usual orange mask on the negative. The negatives come out blue, which most lab scanners just aren’t built to deal with. So if you send it to a lab that doesn’t know what they’re doing, the scans are almost guaranteed to look like trash. Which is exactly what happened — nothing like paying too much for a job you could have done much better at home.

But herein lies the point I am vaguely trying to make. I called analog photography a hobby, but really it’s a craft. It demands a bit of care and attention, you can’t just half-arse it and expect magic to happen. It reminds me of something an old boss used to tell me: “take the time it takes, and it takes less time.”

If you know me, you’ll know that’s not really how I operate. I tend to go head first into things, get stuck in, and blunder my way through. Sometimes that works, but mostly it doesn’t. And film photography is very good at reminding me of that. It either forces you to do things properly, or it forces you to accept your mistakes — of which, in my case, there are many.

Over the past few years, as I’ve gone deeper into all of this, I’ve started to properly appreciate just how much there is to learn. Choosing the film, choosing the camera, deciding how to expose, how to develop, how to scan. Tiny, almost insignificant decisions that end up having a massive impact on the final image. Even things like the type of water you use to develop your film, or the light source you use when scanning. Really geeky stuff, but consequential when you are trying to achieve a certain result. It requires a level of attention that I don’t often dedicate to a lot of other things in my life.

I often think that from the outside, it can look so simple. Scroll Substack or Instagram and it’s easy to think that if you sell a kidney, buy a Leica M6, and load it up with Portra 400, you’ve got yourself a one-way ticket to bangersville. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple — especially if you don’t want to sell your other kidney and outsource all the developing and scanning to labs.

The fact that I don’t find all this stuff easy is a gift. It’s good to have things in your life that are difficult. Things where you have to keep failing, keep learning, keep fucking up. That’s what turns something from a hobby into a craft, into a passion.

So, back to that expired roll of original Phoenix 200 that I picked up on the cheap. I took it into the mountains recently, loaded it into a little Rollei 35 SE, and tried to apply a few of the things I had learnt since I shot the first roll a few years ago. Some of the photos came out great, some of them are still pretty janky. I’m pretty sure there are still a few scanning tricks I’m missing, but it felt like progress nonetheless.

So if anything, for me, all of this is a great exercise in both radical acceptance and actually applying myself to something. I’ll keep learning, geeking, and tinkering in the knowledge that every photo I make is slightly better than the last in some small incremental way.

I hope you enjoy this small selection of my favourite images from that roll…

In our apartment there is one that has formed for no particular reason. In the morning, when we wake up, Alice opens the shutters on the windows, letting in first light and the cool morning air. At night, when it’s time for bed, it’s my turn. I close the shutters to block out the lights from the street below. It’s such a small moment in the day, but one that I’ve strangely become quite attached to.

First I go to the window on the left. I reach out, breathe in the cool air and look up at the twelfth-century castle that sits just above town, lit softly against the night sky. Sometimes the castle is cloaked in a thin haze of fog and it already feels as if I’ve stepped into a dream. Then I move to the window on the right. I lean out, take another breath of fresh air and crane my neck to look up at the church tower, its whitewashed walls standing quietly against the dark. Just before I close the final shutter, my gaze always falls on the lit windows of an old building across the narrow walkway that climbs up toward the church. And every single night there is a man there.

He’s sitting in a room that looks like a library. I can’t see him clearly, just the top of his head really, but it looks like he’s sitting at a table reading. It doesn’t feel intrusive because I can’t actually see what he’s doing. He’s just there, every night.

When I close the shutters, the sight of that man in the window always makes me smile. The predictability of it feels reassuring. Someone else is moving through their routines and rituals, night after night, doing whatever it is he’s doing.

All of this feels like a real contrast to my first part of this year. It has felt pretty messy, unstructured and far from predictable.

I spent a lot of time away from home on various work projects and inevitably picked up a horrible virus that kept reappearing just as I thought I had shaken it off. For nearly two months I was either not sleeping in my own bed or back home shivering and sweating through my own sheets. Weeks passed in a blur of exhaustion and frustration.

There’s a strange psychological trick that happens during periods like this. Objectively you know it will end. Illness passes. Energy returns. But when you’re in the middle of it, your brain (or at least my brain) refuses to believe that things will ever feel normal again.

Over the past couple of months I’ve had countless ideas for things I wanted to write. Articles, photos and projects I wanted to start. But where had my motivation gone? Where had my creativity gone?

If you had asked me a few years ago what allowed me to feel creative, and probably more importantly content, I would have answered something like: adventure, travel, new places, new experiences. And although the past ten years of my life have been full of those things, and many of them have been deeply rewarding, they’ve also come with a fair amount of anxiety. I’ve often found myself mentally scattered, fatigued and foggy. Very much like I have these past few months. For all the adventure and movement, I was constantly drifting away from routine and structure, the very things I’ve spent the past couple of years quietly trying to build.

Now, as I slowly settle back into those routines clarity is returning, creativity is returning. My mind feels calmer and more stable again. The rhythm of life is beginning to find its flow. And that rhythm is exactly what gives me space. Routine, for me at least, isn’t restrictive, it gives me space.

A few years ago I probably would have looked at the man in that lit window and quietly judged him. How boring, I might have thought. Sitting in the same place every night doing the same thing. Now I see something very different. A little daily reminder of the things I need to feel healthy, motivated and connected.

A few photos from back when life was in a healthy flow — the opening ski tour from this season!

Alice’s cousin Victor studied a bit of photography and has developed his own photos in the past, and he’s keen to get back into it. He started asking me what sort of camera might be good for hiking — something lightweight, robust, all that sort of thing.

So I did what no one ever asks me to do (but I do it anyway). I laid out my camera collection on the kitchen table and started rambling on about the pros and cons. Why this one is great except when it’s not. Why none of them are perfect, but all of them are, in their own way. Blah blah blah…

And somewhere in the middle of that ramble I realised something. On every single camera I currently own — and every camera I’ve owned in the past — I’ve taken photos that I absolutely love.

That feels like an important point.

I started thinking about it more, and it struck me that although I like to think of myself as a bit of a camera nerd, I don’t actually seem to have a particularly refined eye for optical excellence. It doesn’t really matter what I make photos with; I seem to be happy with the images that come out of all of them.

That’s probably not just luck, but it also definitely isn’t skill! I think part of this realisation is tied to the fact that I’m far more attached to the images I’ve made on film than anything I’ve made digitally. Film photos feel more tangible. There’s just more that has to happen before the image exists. Even when I end up looking at a scan on a screen, I know what’s gone into it — choosing the film, loading the film, getting the exposure right, remembering that I actually have to focus the thing, developing it, scanning it, inevitably messing something up along the way.

A lot of the time my analogue images are probably not as technically good as something I might have made digitally. They’re not always sharp. The exposure might be off. The focus might not be where I thought it was. But I’m almost always really attached to them anyway. I think that’s because I actually enjoy the imperfections. They feel like my imperfections. The photos tell a story that I’m very tangibly connected to, not just because I was there, but because of the process I went through to make them.

So I wanted to put this idea to the test. I went back through my archive and made a list of every camera I’ve ever owned, or currently own, and picked one image from each that I really like.

They were made on cameras that cost anywhere between about £20 and £1,000. Some were bought because they were practical, some because they look cool, and some had been forgotten in someone’s old dusty closet and handed down to me. And yet the images all feel equal.

There’s probably a lesson for me in there somewhere. That I don’t need to constantly keep thinking I need new things to make better images. And maybe it’s worth saying that if you are someone who wants to get into film photography, it shouldn’t feel daunting. Just buy whatever you can afford that’s in working order. I guarantee once you get that first roll of film back from the lab, or even better, develop it yourself, you’ll be hooked.

(But please, if you do ever come and stay, still ask me about my cameras. I love laying them out on the kitchen table and boring everyone.)

I sat down to try and pick my favourite images I made in 2025 and almost immediately got overwhelmed. I’ve put 89 rolls of film through various cameras this year and filled a 2TB hard drive with digital images. That’s probably less than most professional photographers, but I don’t have the self-belief — or attention span — to whittle that down into a highlight reel.

Which leads me to one of my bigger realisations this year: my self-esteem is pretty much nonexistent — something I’ll be working on going into 2026. I’m far too quick to pit my work against other people’s and feel like I’m competing for admiration (who smells childhood trauma?). So instead of trawling through hard drives and giving myself a panic attack, I thought I’d share a few images from a day back in November — a day that reminded me how fortunate I am to have had the year I’ve had, and the life I’m living.

It was the winter’s first dusting of snow in the Alps, and our friends Alan and Rosie were visiting from Dorset. The weather was unsettled, but we figured it was worth a gamble to head up towards the world-famous mountain lake of Oeschinensee, not far from where we live in Switzerland. Even if it’s cloudy, it’ll still be worth a little hike, we told ourselves. As we climbed, the clouds began to break and the mountains, freshly snow-covered, revealed themselves in the way only the Swiss Alps can.

There are always people at Oeschinensee, for good reason. It’s one of the most spectacular places in the world. But as we gained height and wandered out to a lesser-visited viewpoint, we left most of the tourists behind. We chatted. We picnicked. We threw snowballs at each other. For me, it was a pretty normal day.

And that’s where it hits me.

I’m often stunned by the beauty of the mountains, but I rarely stop to acknowledge how rare this life actually is. That I can reach places like this in under an hour from my front door. That my body allows me to move through them. That I get to be there with the love of my life. That I have community. That I feel like I belong in these places. This is a level of privilege most people in the world don’t have access to — and it’s precious. I don’t let that thought in very often.

Instead, my head is usually crowded with ideas about success, productivity, training, goals. It’s inward-looking, unhealthy, and, at times, pretty tone-deaf.

It’s New Year’s Eve as I write this. My bag is packed, ready to ski into a mountain hut tomorrow morning. I’m starting the year with plenty of thoughts circulating about what 2026 might bring. But, as I head into the mountains tomorrow, I’ll be trying to put my best foot forward. I’ll be reminding myself that I don’t need to get caught up in all the stuff that my mind loves to bog me down with. This year is about: moving slowly, staying present, and sharing as many moments as I can with people I love.

It’s a rare life I get to lead. I want to notice it more. And I want to hold it close.

Happy New Year.

One of the many wonderful things about being obsessed with cameras is that you find yourself on a never-ending quest for the perfect one. What makes this quest even better is that there is never one perfect camera — there are many perfect cameras, for many different conditions, for many different moments in time. And when you combine that with a seemingly endless backlog of old analogue equipment to research, obsess over, and weigh up the pros and cons of, the quest can basically never end.

But maybe, just maybe, I’ve found something that ticks nearly all of the boxes of a very specific list.

As is probably obvious from a lot of the photographs I share, I love taking cameras into the outdoors. The more photos I make, the less seriously I take it. I’m not chasing perfection, I just enjoy the process of documenting day-to-day life, and I’m very fortunate that a lot of my day-to-day happens in beautiful places in the mountains.

Most of the time I’m moving relatively fast and light. And although I have been known to squeeze a medium format camera into a small running pack, it’s not always practical. In reality, I tend to reach for cameras that are small, light, and convenient.

Over time, I’ve developed a bit of a must-have list for my ideal mountain adventure camera.

Fully mechanical

This is surprisingly hard to find in a small form factor. As tempted as I’ve been by premium point-and-shoots like a Contax T2 or a Minolta TC-1, it feels ridiculous to spend much more than $100 on a camera full of ageing electronics that are inevitably going to fail, and either be impossible or expensive to repair.

They might have great glass, snappy autofocus, or whatever else, but they will break. Especially if you’re regularly covering them in sweat, dropping them in snow, or generally not treating them like museum pieces. Suddenly that $1,000 trendy compact doesn’t make much sense.

I do own a couple of fully electronic cameras, and one of them is fairly expensive. I enjoy using them, but I’m also at peace with the fact that they’re ticking time bombs.

When I go to the mountains, I want to know that it doesn’t really matter what abuse I put a camera through.

A friend recently gave me an old fixed-lens Yashica rangefinder he found while clearing out his dad’s house. I took it out and it worked perfectly. The same goes for an old Ilford camera that belonged to my grandad. These fully mechanical cameras just keep going.

Fully manual

Mountain light is rarely easy, and I really like having full control over exposure. Sometimes exposure compensation or tricking an internal meter by setting ISO works fine. But most of the time, I don’t want to rely on a light meter at all — I want to set exposure myself.

Unless I’m shooting a close portrait, I’m almost always working off the Sunny 16 rule. I get far more consistently good exposures trusting my instinct than relying on internal meters — especially on snow, in very bright conditions, or shooting directly into the sun.

The downside is that this level of control usually comes with bigger, heavier cameras.

I also find autofocus on most compact cameras pretty limiting. I’d much rather zone-focus and guess distance most of the time.

A wide focal length

In the mountains, 28mm is my most-used focal length. It’s incredibly versatile and aligns closely with how I see compositions. It also means I don’t need to move around too much to create space between myself and my subject.

That said, I’ve been having a lot of success with 35mm recently. It’s always felt a bit meh to me — not especially wide, not especially intimate — but several cameras I’ve picked up over the past year have forced me to use it. And I’ve come to really enjoy the perspective.

Compact, light, and quick to use

Form factor is huge. Ideally, my perfect camera fits into the front pocket of a running vest or the waist-belt pocket of a ski touring pack. It needs to be quick to access and not precious about getting wet or knocked around.

Cameras are meant to be used. And I’ll admit, I don’t take the best care of my gear — there’s a reason I can’t have nice things.

The one

It’s a fairly specific list, but I’ve just put my first roll of film through a Rollei 35 SE and it’s such a cool little camera.

I picked it up almost by accident. I was in our local pawn shop selling some old electric guitar gear, and while the assistant was pricing things up, he noticed me browsing the camera shelf. He mentioned he could give me a better deal if I was buying something from the shop.

That was all the encouragement I needed to grab the slightly beat-up Rollei and give it a go.

Buying old cameras from pawn shops is always a gamble, but it’s fully mechanical, the shutter seemed to work well enough, and it was effectively a straight swap for the guitar kit I was trading in. Worth the risk.

So far, I’ve only put one roll of Kodak ColorPlus 200 through it — half wandering around town on a moody day, half up in the mountains on a sunny ski tour. And I’m really happy with the results.

It’s fun and easy to use. The images feel sharp and characterful. It still blows my mind that something this small can produce images with the same feel as a much larger SLR. It looks like a toy in the hand, but it delivers proper, grown-up results.

I’m excited to put a few more rolls through it. It genuinely feels like the camera I’ve been looking for.

Although… that doesn’t mean I’ll be deleting the wish list full of other beautiful old cameras I’d still love to try.

I hope you enjoy a few frames from that first roll through the Rollie 35 SE all developed and scanned at home:

The piece really began on a night of wind and sleet at Kosovo Camp, nearly 5,000 metres above sea level, when a storm hammered the thin walls of my tent on the side of Kilimanjaro. I was there working alongside three other British guides and a team of almost a hundred Tanzanian staff, preparing a group of international school students for a summit attempt the following morning. If you haven’t been to Kilimanjaro, it is hard to describe just how much the entire experience leans on a colonial architecture. As a client or western guide, almost nothing is left for you to do. Porters carry your bags, chefs prepare your meals, hot tea appears in your hand before you can think to ask. Your experience comes at the price of the hard, low paid labour of others. You can’t help but be reminded of the old photographs from early European expeditions to the greater ranges: groups of white climbers looking heroic in the foreground while long rows of black and brown porters fade into the background; made anonymous by white supremacy but essential to the “pioneering success” of these expeditions.

That day, the weather had been growing steadily worse. By the time we approached camp, the wind had reached a violence that made even standing upright an effort. We had to physically hold on to some of the students to stop them being knocked flat. The porters, who usually move with honed speed and efficiency, were slowed to a crawl as the loads on their backs caught the wind like sails. Most of them had spent the morning packing down the previous camp — taking down our tents, clearing our cooking area, gathering the waste — before racing ahead of us to rebuild an entirely new camp at a higher altitude. Their loads were enormous, easily triple the size of the bags we carried, yet they kept moving through the storm because our comfort depended on it.

By the time we arrived at Kosovo Camp, the final camp before summit day, only a handful of tents had been erected. It had been impossible to put up the large dome tent that usually served as the dinning and meeting room; the fabric simply could not be held against the power of the wind. The team had managed to get a smaller tent pitched, so we ushered the students inside and waited while the Tanzanian staff kept working through the storm. I occasionally ventured outside, my top of the range jackets zipped right up, well-fed and warm, watching women and men in threadbare layers battle the wind to erect the rest of our tents as well as their older tents that were not at all fit for the conditions. Amongst all of this, somehow, by evening, they had produced a three-course meal in a kitchen tent that looked as though it would fold in half at any moment.

The chances of even setting out for the summit were low in this weather and as I climbed into my tent for the night I knew that there would be no sleep. Every hour I’d crawl out to check the students, to see if tents were still in one piece. Our modern high altitude tents were fairing well, but the Tanzanian staff tents were slowly being flattened by the relentless wind. At 2am, when we were due to set out on our summit push, the guide team met and we officially called off our attempt and decided to lay low for the rest of the night and start our journey down the mountain in the morning.

At first light, the storm eased, and I stepped out into the cold morning fog to find a large 10 person porter tent completely flattened. The soaked, frozen material had collapsed onto the sleeping bodies inside, creating cold, contoured silhouettes of the people who had endured a night that bordered on the unthinkable. That sight was, in a way, a final confirmation of something that had been stirring inside me, not only as I lay awake that night, but for a long time: that my presence in this place, and in places like it, came with consequences I had never really allowed myself to acknowledge.

Most of my adult life has been built around the idea that travelling to the “Global South” — a term that itself carries the weight of history and racism — is a positive thing. I believed that going to poorer countries to climb mountains, run trails, or explore landscapes made me a more open, worldly, compassionate person. And, in a way, that belief was reinforced everywhere I turned. Adventure and mountaineering culture loves the idea that “authentic” experiences live in places where life is cheaper and where the contrast between your life and theirs can be seen so viscerally. It seems that I blindly absorbed the narrative that not only was it acceptable to go to places like Tanzania for adventure or work — it was admirable.

What I had never examined was the impact of my presence. I carried around the usual ideas: that I brought money into the economy, that people appreciated the work, that guides and porters benefitted from tourism, that cultural exchange was good for everyone. Yet hidden in those lines — “I bring money,” “they benefit,” “tourism supports” — there is an unspoken assumption that these communities need us, that their survival or prosperity depends on our generousity, our participation, our decision to “visit.” Why are we so comfortable with that implication? The truth is that we as white people designed the global order that keeps certain nations economically precarious. We built white supremacy and we continue to benefit from it in ways we conveniently rarely acknowledge. It is striking that we all know what white supremacy is, we understand that it is a bad thing, yet we are more than happy to benefit from it.

The reality is: if I truly cared about the economic plight of porters on Kilimanjaro, I would just send them money.

I would not need a summit or some photographs or a good story to tell in return. The fact that I needed something in exchange — and something significant — reveals that the primary beneficiary was always me. The idea that my presence was somehow a net positive to the local community was a way to mask the extractive nature of the entire transaction.

One of the biggest reasons these communities are economically vulnerable in the first place is inseparable from centuries of colonial violence, resource extraction, and ongoing neo-colonial practices embedded in global trade and diplomacy. Colonisation did not simply “happen” and end; it reshaped entire continents in ways that continue to determine who has access to wealth, mobility, opportunity, and safety. And trauma — as Gabor Maté often writes — does not end with the generation that directly experienced it; it is passed down psychologically, socially, and even somatically. Black and brown communities carry the imprint of historical oppression in ways that are both conscious and unconscious, visible and invisible. When I arrive in a place like Tanzania as a white man, I do not arrive as a blank slate. I arrive as an embodiment of a history that has been violently lived by the ancestors of the very people serving me tea at high altitude. Their bodies remember even when their words are polite. It doesn’t matter how friendly I am, or how much I see us as equals — the power dynamic has already been written.

Ideas of “cultural exchange” reveal their imbalance when examined closely. White travellers often speak as though sharing our culture is an inherent good — something others should want, something that enriches them simply through proximity. But again, this centres us as the bearers of knowledge, the holders of value, the ones whose stories matter most. It rarely occurs to us that people might not want our culture, that they might not be longing to practice their English, that they might not be fascinated by our presence. And when we say we are going somewhere to “learn,” it is usually only in the superficial sense — learning through observation, experience, the consumption of difference — rather than through any genuine willingness to decentre ourselves.

On Kilimanjaro, the economic imbalance is impossible to ignore. A well-paid porter earns about $10 a day; a well-paid guide might make $30. I earn at least ten times that for doing the same job — and then fly home to a life where my comfort is never in question. For years, I justified paying people far less than I would in Europe because it allowed me to get what I wanted at a price that suited me. I’ve repeated the same lines many white travellers use: “Don’t pay too much — you’ll distort the local economy,” as though fair wages are somehow harmful, as though poverty needs to be preserved for the sake of balance. It’s shameful that I believed this — that underpaying people could be reframed as responsible behaviour. It’s a deeply colonial idea dressed up as practical travel advice, a way of protecting our access to cheap labour while pretending that we’re safeguarding the integrity of the local community.

What makes this even more uncomfortable is that I always assumed I understood the history — the centuries of colonial extraction and the role Europe played in impoverishing entire regions — yet I never placed myself inside that history. I treated colonialism as something academic, not something I was actively participating in. A striking example of that participation is how readily I’ve bartered with local people. White travellers are taught — practically as a rite of passage — that everyone in these countries is trying to “rip us off,” and that negotiating prices down is part of the experience. I live in Switzerland and pay 7CHF for a shit coffee without blinking an eye, but I’d suddenly become an economic purist the moment the person on the other side of the transaction was brown or Black. We don’t talk about being ripped off in Oslo or Geneva — at least not with the same suspicion or racial implication; we reserve that narrative for the very people and places our ancestors exploited for centuries. It’s remarkable how quickly we position ourselves as the ones at risk of being taken advantage of, totally ignoring the historical and economic context, as if the real injustice is a taxi driver asking for an extra dollar. What I was actually protecting was my entitlement: the belief that I should always have access to cheap labour from the same populations Europe extracted wealth from for generations. And that extraction hasn’t stopped — it continues through global trade, political influence, and border regimes that give me almost limitless mobility while restricting theirs, through an entire system that makes it infinitely easier for me to climb their mountains than for them to even imagine visiting mine.

My photographs are tangled up in this neo-colonial, self-entitled web too. On Kili, I told myself I was documenting the “real story” by photographing the porters and guides rather than just the landscapes. I told myself I wanted to capture the “real story” of the mountain. But the more honest truth is harder to sit with: images of Black and brown people in harsh, dramatic environments have long been part of how white travellers signal their own worldliness. If you scroll through the portfolio of almost any white travel photographer, you’ll see the same images crop up — the same faces, the same “gritty” street portraits. The same photographers don’t wander around Europe photographing struggling white kids on the pavement for their “cultural storytelling.” We reserve that voyeurism for the Global South, because we know those images will be read as interesting, exotic, and adventurous by a white audience. It’s lazy photography, no matter how technically proficient and I have made a lot of photographs in this way. And although I asked for consent, learned their names, and shared conversations, none of that changes the power dynamic that made those images possible. It doesn’t change why I was drawn to take them, what assumptions I was relying on, or how those photographs ultimately function in a portfolio belonging to a white man who can leave these places whenever he wants.

Letting all of this sink in forced me to admit that travelling to somewhere like Tanzania, or anywhere in the global South, is never neutral for someone like me. My movement through those places is part of a much longer story in which white bodies have always had the freedom to cross borders, take what they want, and be welcomed, while Black and brown people have been positioned as the labour and backdrop that make that freedom possible. The advantages my whiteness gives me are structural and ongoing, and no amount of kindness or self-awareness cancels out the power I carry with me. Pretending I can just be a “respectful visitor” is another way of avoiding the reality that the world is still arranged to make my life easy, and theirs oppressed.

Why do white people — myself very much included — feel such a pull to places where our privilege becomes so visible? Why do we fetishise environments where we pay less for everything, where our money goes further, where we can live out fantasies of simplicity or adventure or escape? Why do we assume that our presence is a net positive when we would never accept the inverse — Tanzanians or Nepalese or Indians coming to Europe to pay us a fraction of the local wage to carry their bags, cook their meals, and build their experiences for them?

I’m still reaching for my own answers, and I know I’ll need to keep seeking out the voices of people who understand these dynamics far better than I ever will. But I do know that I’m no longer comfortable participating in systems where my leisure depends so directly on another person’s lack of options.

What has become painfully clear over the past couple of years is that my life has been anything but “diverse” or “worldly”. I have never formed deep friendships with people of colour. Almost all the media I consumed was produced by straight white men. I’d rarely read books, watched films, or sought out perspectives created by people whose experiences sit outside the white Western default. These things matter, and the absence of them shaped how little I understood my own position in the world. It wasn’t until I met my partner, Alice — who has been doing this work for years — that anyone ever pointed out how limited my worldview really was. Her commitment to fighting oppression and injustice has been a constant challenge in my life, in the best possible way. I’d be lying if I said I handled it gracefully. I have been defensive, desperate to be seen as “one of the good ones,” and resistant to the possibility that I, my friends, my family, could all be participating in such violent behaviours. That defensiveness is its own form of entitlement.

But listening to Alice — and to the Black and brown writers, thinkers, and activists I’ve since started reading — has made one thing obvious: wherever I go in the world, my race places me at the top of a hierarchy. That reality will always shape the impact of my presence, whether I acknowledge it or not. I’m still working out what that means for my life, my work, and my identity. But I do know this: I will never again climb a mountain that requires the aid of another being — human or non-human — whose lack of economic choice is the reason they’re carrying my load.

More broadly, I feel myself moving towards a set of values that will most likely mean stepping back entirely from setting foot in countries so deeply affected by colonialism and white supremacy. I have listened and read different takes from Black and brown thinkers. Some argue that white people simply should not travel to formerly colonised lands, full stop — that it is, inherently, a continuation of the violence. Others suggest that if white people insist on going (and it’s important to remember that we never need to), the very least we can do is develop an honest understanding of what our presence means: the power it invokes, the harm it can replicate, the history it reactivates.

I’m still wrestling with all of this. Letting go of the person I was — the person who believed he had a right to roam anywhere, to experience anything. I still find it uncomfortable. That entitlement is deep, and it doesn’t disappear just because I’ve recognised it.

But I know that the bare minimum — the absolute least I can do — is to stay in the discomfort, to keep learning from people whose knowledge is shaped by lived experience rather than my own assumptions, and to take responsibility for where I place my body in the world and why.

I still feel drawn to share some of the photographs I made on Kili, and on a technical level I’m proud of them. But I also know they were created by a version of myself who didn’t understand the implications of a white man photographing Black people in a landscape shaped by colonial history. Now, when I look at them, I see far more than I did then — including the power and entitlement that shaped the act of taking them.

The whole thing was orchestrated by couple who, in true Swiss fashion, handled everything with terrifying efficiency — accommodation booked, routes curated, logistics colour-coded. They even fronted over 6,000 CHF for the accommodation without asking for payment until after the weekend. Only in Switzerland could something like this happen: a place where you could leave your wallet on a park bench overnight and find it neatly returned with a thank-you note. For my partner (French) and me (British), it all felt like a bit ridiculous but, often leaving things to the last minute, we were grateful for all of the hard work that had gone into every last details of the organisation.

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This year I’ve been quietly chipping away at a content project for my girlfriend’s company — a series of hiking, running, ski touring, and snowshoeing routes across Switzerland. The idea is to create a community resource: something that lets people easily discover new trails without needing to trawl through the internet for beautiful spots to spend their outdoor time. So, when this weekend away came up, I figured I could double up — enjoy the social side and make some photos and routes for the project. That is my version of Swiss efficiency.

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I packed three cameras for the trip:

• Nikon FM2

• Olympus AF-1

• Fuji GA645

I hadn’t shot much medium format this summer, so it was nice to get the Fuji back out. It’s basically the only medium format camera I’d ever consider sliding into a running vest — rangefinder style, quiet, and somehow it managed to survive a lot of sweat and “bumpy descents” despite being renowned as a bit of a delicate flower. But, the lens on that thing is pure witchcraft. Sharp but soft in the right places, and with that impossible to fake Fuji glow. I love it and haven’t used it enough this summer.

That said, I’m still a sucker for fully manual setups when I’m running — there’s something about turning dials, guessing exposures and fumbling focus on the move that keeps the whole thing human. But sometimes convenience wins, and the AF-1’s point-and-shoot simplicity is great for a few casual candid shots or when I can only use one hand on technical terrain.

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Here’s a small selection from one of my favourite trips of the summer. The colour shots are Portra 400, run through either the FM2 or GA645, and the black and white frames are Kentmere 400 from the final day — when we scrambled up a ridgeline with the AF-1 dangling around my neck and banging against rocks.

The particular folder I landed on the other night was full of images that never really saw the light of day… here’s what happened.

I was approached by a trail running brand that was putting together this new marketing project. They wanted to host monthly trail running events—“activations,” I think they call them in the biz—where they’d bring together a few runners, maybe some influencers and journalists, and go on a two-day mountain adventure to test gear and generate content.

A friend of mine was hired to produce the first edition—a trial run of the concept. She planned the route, booked a hut, found models, organised logistics. I was brought in to shoot the weekend documentary-style and capture the adventure.

Everything went smoothly. It was a fun weekend, and I came away with some good shots. It all seemed like a success. When my friend and I spoke to the brand afterwards, they were enthusiastic and said it could become a regular thing. We shared a couple of emails, got paid, and then… radio silence. Never heard from them again.

It was such odd behaviour. Maybe it hadn’t been a success? Maybe it cost too much? Maybe they didn’t like the photos? All understandable possibilities—but it was as if the people we’d been in touch with had fallen off the face of the planet.

I didn’t think much more about it until I reopened that folder the other night. The whole thing got me thinking about this trend of ghosting that’s become so normal in our world. What happened with that project felt like a microcosm of how people—and interactions—are treated as disposable resources.

I’m not necessarily saying that’s what happened in my case. There are plenty of innocent explanations. But still, it got me thinking.

I can almost guarantee that if you’re reading this, you’ve been ghosted in some way—professionally, romantically, socially. At this point it’s just part of “getting into bed” with someone: there’s always a chance they’ll pull a disappearing act. And like all hurtful things humans do to each other, there’s a reason behind it.

It’s hard to think about this without capitalism and consumerism elbowing their way to the front of my mind. We live in a society that teaches us two things:

1. Our personal happiness and success are paramount.

2. Consuming as much as we want is not only fine—it’s a sign of success.

With that as the cultural framework, it’s not hard to connect the dots. We’ve internalised this capitalist ethos of “I should be at the top of the pile,” which turns both things and people into resources. (As a side note, this is also part of why billions of animals are enslaved and killed every day.)

Unless someone brings us pleasure or aids our personal success, we don’t need them—or we only need them in a conditional way. It mirrors the world we live in: new tech every few months, fast fashion that’s meant to be thrown away, everything designed to be replaceable the second it’s no longer relevant.

But the capitalist dumpster fire we live in doesn’t fully explain why people can’t just communicate respectfully and take responsibility. Maybe it’s also down to technology. Ghosting is simply the path of least resistance. There’s no friction—you don’t have to face difficult emotions or reactions. When you never have to look someone in the eye, when they’re just an email or a DM, why make life harder than it needs to be?

A line from the podcast Bobo’s Void comes to mind: “Love cannot exist without friction.”

Obviously I’m not suggesting we all start loving our colleagues, but I do wonder why we’re so collectively terrified of friction. I respect when people are willing to have difficult conversations with me. Relationships—of any kind—don’t grow strong without them. But when we’re constantly sold things designed to make life “easier,” it’s no wonder we’ve been conditioned to always choose whatever feels easiest. (Another side note: this is why the revolution will never come.)

When you live in a late-stage capitalist society where everyone’s mentally ill and self-medicating—whether through eating shit food, having kids, doing drink and drugs, or watching porn—then of course you’re going to take any escape that lets you avoid more discomfort. Ghosting someone after a Tinder date, never texting them again, and moving straight on to the next is just one more dysfunctional coping mechanism. And when the world keeps telling you there are infinite “better” people to fuck, hire, hang out with, or go on adventures with, it’s easy to repeat that pattern forever.

But we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. And I absolutely include myself in that.

If you saw my WhatsApp unread messages, you’d be appalled. I’ve ghosted people too—Tinder dates, work contacts—because I didn’t want to explain myself. I’m bad at taking responsibility and having hard conversations. But I’m starting to realise that avoidance robs me of deep, meaningful, long-lasting relationships.

I don’t think it is over the top to say that by not ghosting each other we are resisting capitalism and doing our bit to not fall into a mass of apathetic, unconnected and self centred zombies propping up tech billionaires and fascist governments.

After all, all we’ve really got is each other.

Here are a few photos from the weekend

These photos are from one of those rolls. We were heading high into the mountains and I wanted to keep things light, so I grabbed my little Olympus AF-1 which still had half a roll of Kentmere 400 in it from a previous outing.

I’m not naturally drawn to black and white, so I often spend the first hour or two cursing the fact that I’m surrounded by vivid colour and can’t take advantage of it. I have to consciously settle into the idea of seeing in monochrome; it can feel frustrating and a bit disappointing at first. But I just snap away, trying to lean into contrast and shape.

As it turned out, this was one of those times where the camera and the “accidental” film choice ended up being perfect. Our route started at the Simplon Pass Hospice, and at around 2000m we were already above the treeline and in proper alpine terrain. We left behind the greens, yellows and oranges and everything shifted to greys, blacks, whites. The sky also dulled as cloud rolled in and out the higher we climbed.

Once the trail narrowed into a scramble, the harsh lines of the ridge stood stark against the swirling weather. I happily fired the shutter, doing my best not to slip while photographing Alice moving across the rocks. As the landscape changed, so did my attitude about the film in my little AF1.

I try not to turn these days into a photo shoot. Now and again I’ll ask Alice to slow down or repeat a short section, but mostly I want to keep things natural and moving. Film suits me for that way of working. Whether it’s a tiny point-and-shoot like the AF-1 or an SLR I’m zone-focusing on the fly, shooting film feels more intuitive and freeing than digital—I click the shutter and move on. For me, this is exactly what I want when I’m documenting this kind of day out in the hills.

I love nearly every frame from that half-roll. I’m realising that black and white draws my attention to shape. Running in the mountains—especially these kinds of mountains—creates such interesting forms. I’ve probably only shot five or six rolls of black and white while mountain running, but I’m starting to see the creative possibilities in it.

I hope you enjoy the photos and if you have any good monochrome advice or inspiration, please send it my way. I just bought a bunch of 35mm Kodak T-Max to try out!

My writing here has evolved into something I didn’t quite expect. I first gravitated towards Substack as an alternative to social media — a place to share my work in a more meaningful way. But what I found was a space to dive deeper into personal thoughts and experiences, to get a little political, and to open up about how I see the world.

This new section of my newsletter is a place to get into the nuts and bolts of my photography. The photos will still play a big part in the stories on my main newsletter, but here I’ll dive into gear, techniques, and share images that I simply love and enjoy. If that’s your thing, stick around. If you’re here mainly for the essays, you can opt out of this section and still receive the main newsletter.

To kick things off, I wanted to share a set from one of my favourite days above Zinal in the Swiss Alps — it really was a summer full of long climbs, rocky scrambles, and glacier views. Alice and I had a lot of days like this: big vertical gain and very tired legs.

I always bring some kind of film camera on these missions, though weight usually limits me to something small and simple. For this outing, and many others this year, I took the Fuji HD-M. It’s a bit bulkier than your average point-and-shoot and the optics aren’t exactly top-tier, but I love that it’s waterproof (because I sweat A LOT) and allows me to set ISO manually for more exposure control.

I was testing Kodak ColorPlus for the first time and was really happy with the results — especially considering it’s one of the cheapest colour films you can buy right now. I’m looking forward to seeing how it handles snowy conditions this coming winter. The black-and-white shots are the end of a roll of Kentmere 400, another affordable stock that consistently surprises me. It’s nice having a few reliable budget options for these casual personal days when I’m just clicking away for the joy of it.

And finally — I’m incredibly lucky to spend so much time in the mountains with the best model. Thanks, Alice, for always being up for running back and forth for me… even above 3,000 metres!

I’d love to hear what you think of the photos. I plan to weave more of these stripped-back, photo-led pieces in between the longer essays as this space evolves.

Before we met up, I asked if there was a fell or trail she especially wanted to run. Somewhere that maybe meant something to her or a place that keeps drawing her back. This was her response:

“Helvellyn always feels like a bit of an anchor, with many evening & first light runs on or around the mountain. Squeezing in mini adventures around work (for some reason Helvellyn often feels like the target summit), the anticipation of longer evenings creeping back in, BG support etc.”

It made me smile, because if someone had asked me the same question, I would have chosen Helvellyn too. I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s because I can picture its contours so clearly, or because I can feel the texture of the rock on its ridge scrambles if I close my eyes. Maybe it’s the stories my dad used to tell me about the adventures he’d had there. Whatever it is, the mountain has lodged itself in my subconscious and I smile when I think of it. And I suspect I’m not the only one. I have no doubt that there are hundreds, if not thousands of people who live in or have visited the Lake District who feel the pull of Helvellyn.

That day, running with Sarah, I started to reflect on why this mountain brought up these feelings. Why does this particular mountain feel different? And why, when I talk about Helvellyn, do I not speak about it in the same way that people in other parts of the world speak about their mountains?

Mount Kailash in Tibet, Mount Fuji in Japan—these are not just peaks on a map. They are living presences. People have walked towards them and around them for thousands of years, carried by faith, ritual, and a deep spirituality. Yet here in the UK, or even in most of Europe, we don’t seem to have that kind of relationship with our environment anymore. If I told you that I was going to spend a couple of weeks walking around Helvellyn, quietly muttering mantras, all because I was seeking out enlightenment, you would label me as a bit odd and irrational. But when we see a picture of a brown person blessing mountaineers about to embark on a long climb up Everest we enjoy the exoticism. We understand that climbers are there to conquer a peak rather than form a relationship with the mountain and be closer to god, but we are happy to let the locals perform their rituals for our cameras. (And we also don’t question the fact that Everest is not the real name of the mountain, it is a colonial name given to the peak without any permission.)

When white people started to rape and pillage their way around the world we took it upon ourselves to look down at people who experienced spirituality differently to us, labelling them primitive, irrational, unscientific. While at the same time, we romanticised them. The figure of the monk in the Himalayas or the shaman in the Andes became something to marvel at, a curiosity for Western travellers to write home about while our colonial systems actively set out to dismantle those same traditions.

I remember a few years ago in Nepal, hiking up to a cave to be blessed before crossing a high mountain pass. It was a powerful experience, but if I’m honest, I still treated it like a novelty. Something to collect. A story to tell. It is uncomfortable for me to recon with and it says a lot about the lens I’ve been taught to look through: one that ranks spirituality depending on who performs it and where.

Hundreds of books, films, stories and conversations have taught us to see Indigenous or non-Western practices as “authentic spirituality,” while dismissing the possibility that our own landscapes could hold anything similar. It keeps us fascinated by ceremonies in the Himalayas while laughing off the idea that an English fell runner might bow their head for a blessing before a climb. We end up holding other people’s reverence at arm’s length—beautiful to look at, but never to be taken as seriously as our science or our logic.

Western rationality has been elevated as the highest form of thought, the gold standard by which everything else is judged. Spirituality tied to land is tolerated only when it appears in places we’ve already decided are “exotic.” The irony is that so many Westerners now travel to these “exotic” places precisely to feel something sacred and spiritual. To chase meaning or mindfulness in landscapes that still carry ancient rituals. That’s not just spiritual tourism, it’s neo-colonialism, where other people’s sacred spaces become our personal recharge stations.

As I understand it, Europe had its own traditions of reverence before the Enlightenment erased them. Our mountains had their gods and spirits, we had places where offerings were left and stories rooted. That history has been overwritten so thoroughly that we now forget it ever existed. Science has taken the place of our lost reverence, and our entrenched racism has made sure it’s here to stay.

It is not just through our colonial past and deep seated racism that we have lost touch with our own nature. I feel like capitalism has to take a lot of the responsibility too. We have reframed mountains as resources to be mapped, conquered and exploited. Even in the outdoor sports world, the language gives it away: conquer, summit, first ascent, fastest known time. Mountains become challenges to dominate, lists to tick off, adventures to brag about.

We talk about “doing” the Alps or “bagging” Munro’s. Even National parks, while trying to protect landscapes, often package them into consumable “experiences.” Adventure brands push the message that value comes not from simply being in the mountains, but from maximising what you can get out of them: speed, elevation, gear, content.

It’s the same story of extraction and exploitation, just dressed differently. Where we once cut down all the trees for fuel and to make way for farming, we now mine the landscape for selfies and strava segments, reducing the mountain to proof of our own effort. Even our sense of achievement is framed in capitalist terms: personal bests, vertical metres gained, segments conquered. Reverence becomes performance.

Personally, I think I need to start the work of how to shrug off this racist and capitalism mindset that has formed the way I see nature in our (Western) backyard. That doesn’t mean I am going to start copying ceremonies from other cultures or stop pressing “start” on my GPS watch when I head out on the trail. I think the work starts in remembering that we too used to have a deeply spiritual connection with nature and we can let ourselves feel that again without thinking that it is sentimental or unnatural.

If I am honest with myself, I know that I feel it. I know there is something about being in these places, I just let “rationality” get in the way of exploring these feelings. I really do think that we are all losing out on a deeper and more enjoyable connection when we see mountains and nature as simply “playgrounds” or experiences to collect.

We have traded connection for content, rituals for “progress”, reverence for science. We have made ourselves feel superior to the rest of the world and in the process we have lost one of the most important things about being human — our inexplicable link to the natural world.

Here are a few photo’s from that lovely evening out on Helvellyn with Sarah that sparked all these thoughts:

Most of that writing has been for myself—and we’ll get to that—but I wanted to share a quick note I jotted down on the train a few weeks ago. The reason I’m posting it now is because I’m currently sitting in the very place where the photos that inspired that note were taken: up at the Grand Saint Bernard Monastery, on the border of Switzerland and Italy. And I’ve spent the past few days with the person who inspired these words. So it felt like a fitting moment to share.

The other day I finished a pen. I can’t remember the last time that happened—maybe never? What I mean is, I ran out of ink in a pen I’d intentionally bought to start a new project. Actually, “project” is the wrong word—it makes it sound far too formal and work-related. Maybe “a new habit” is more accurate. I can’t quite bring myself to use the phrase daily practice.

A few weeks ago, I caught up with my friend Mirna Valerio (who I’ve written about here before) while she was passing through the Alps. We spent a couple of hours sipping overpriced drinks on a particularly nice terrace in Chamonix. We chatted about anxiety, joy, mutual friends, art, politics… and then, almost out of nowhere, Mirna asked, “Do you journal?”

On most days, that would’ve felt like a pretty normal question—something I’d mull over in the moment but probably forget about a few minutes later. But it hit harder than usual. For the past few weeks, I’d been intentionally thinking about journaling, researching different approaches, and figuring out how to actually get something meaningful out of putting pen to paper.

The idea had bubbled up from a few different places: a desire to build on the work I’d been doing in therapy, a way to develop and organise thoughts—but mostly, I just wanted to step away from the digital world and practise a skill that doesn’t come naturally to me. Taking the time to sit with my thoughts and slowly transfer them onto paper felt like it might do me some good.

So when Mirna brought it up, it felt like the universe giving me the final nudge. She spoke with excitement about a book she’d recently picked up called The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad. Every evening, she’d sit down with it, read a short essay, and respond to a daily prompt—a bit of guidance on what to reflect on or write about. I loved the idea. Within a few days, I was sat at the table with a brand new journal, a fresh pen, and a book full of 100 short essays and prompts to work through.

The thing about Mirna is, she’s used to adding new things to her life—and sticking with them. That evening, she told me about a recent podcast she’d recorded with Outside Magazine, sharing her experience of learning to ski as an adult. A few months earlier, she’d actually come to the Alps to ski, and we ended up ski touring up to the hospice at the Grand Saint Bernard Pass—while she was in the midst of a severe bout of food poisoning (she tells that story hilariously on the podcast). She spoke about the role of confidence and bravery in stepping outside your comfort zone, the importance of encouraging role models, and the need to keep yourself accountable. But what I see in Mirna is someone who has put in the work to become incredibly disciplined. She speaks multiple languages, is a talented musician, writer, and public speaker—all skills that come from consistently showing up, even when things are hard. Mirna understands delayed gratification. Historically, I have not.

I’m very good at starting things. But as soon as the initial buzz fades and the dopamine hit wears off, I tend to make my excuses and move on to something shinier.

In the introduction to the book, the author mentions that journaling with someone else can make it easier to stick to the practice—oops, sorry, habit. Luckily, my partner Alice didn’t need any convincing to be my accountability buddy. So now, most evenings after dinner, we sit at the table, read from the book, and write down whatever’s in our heads. Sometimes it flows. Sometimes I only manage a few lines. Sometimes we skip an evening because we’re exhausted and our lives are too full. But very quickly, it’s become part of our routine—and one I (mostly) really look forward to.

An unintended consequence—and maybe even my favourite part—is that we often end up talking about what we’ve written. The prompts bring up things we’ve never shared with each other before, and we’re learning stuff we might never have otherwise known. It’s the part of the day where we might’ve just watched TV or scrolled on our phones—and honestly, any time that pulls me away from my phone feels like time well spent.

I don’t want to pat myself on the back too soon, but the fact that I actually finished a pen feels like a good sign that the habit might stick. And while I wouldn’t put journaling in the same category as learning to ski as an adult, like Mirna did, choosing to spend my time more intentionally—and with a bit more discipline—is definitely something I could’ve easily swerved. So, thanks to Mirna for the nudge, to Alice for keeping me accountable, and to Suleika Jaouad for putting together a book I genuinely think you should all go and pick up.

Here are a few pictures from that ski tour up to the Grand Saint Bernard

Alice shared a video with me the other day — a short clip of Trevor Noah talking about “the village,” and how that idea has been systematically broken apart by governments and capitalism. His point was that we used to have support systems around us, and now those systems are being sold back to us one by one. You need childcare? That’ll cost you. Need mental health support? Get in the long line and pay up. Don’t have time to tend your own garden? There’s probably an subscription based app for that.

It’s a total scam — one that’s made us lonelier, more tired, and worse off — not just economically, but emotionally and socially too.

I heard something relevant on a podcast the other day. One of the hosts admitted he used to look down on people who were proud of the towns they lived in — people who had never left, who didn’t seem to care much about the wider world. But he’s changed his mind, and so have I. We need more people who care deeply about where they live, who put their energy into supporting and protecting their own communities, rather than doom-scrolling the global horrors they can’t control or getting over-excited about tyrannical leaders who are just a logical consequence of the system.

The thing is, for a community to be strong, it has to be safe — and not just for some, but for all. As we come to understand the full range of human experiences and identities, we also have to reckon with the systems that have torn communities apart. At the heart of this violent political project is a long history of oppression — a belief that it’s normal, even necessary, to dominate the vulnerable. This logic didn’t start with how we treat each other. I have come to understand through conversations with far more intelligent people than me, that it’s rooted in speciesism — the idea that some lives are worth more than others, and that exploitation is just part of life. It’s not. And until we let go of that belief, our communities will never be truly whole.

It’s the original made-up hierarchy. The story that says humans are superior to all other non-human animals — and that superiority justifies harm. Once you accept that logic, it becomes very easy to slot in other hierarchies too. To end oppression and rebuild the village, we need to understand that no form of oppression exists in isolation. The logic that justifies racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism is the same logic that justifies speciesism. It’s the belief that some lives matter more than others. That power gives us the right to harm. That vulnerability is something to be used, not protected.

This isn’t just a philosophical idea — it’s something we all participate in, whether we like it or not. And it’s on all of us to do the hard work of unwiring these beliefs. It’s easy to talk about justice when we’re talking about human beings. Most people can agree that exploiting other humans is wrong (although we still seem to do it anyway). But try to extend that same logic to non-human animals, and suddenly you’re asking too much. Suddenly it’s “radical.”

It might sound a bit tone-deaf to say that a vegan breakfast in Switzerland reminded me how communities can be wholesome and powerful. I know Switzerland already benefits from strong community structures — partly because of its wealth, its conservative immigration policies, and its history. But even so, I think events like this matter. No act of resistance is too small. Especially when it challenges norms in places where comfort and tradition often go unquestioned.

The vegan breakfast honestly gave me a hopeful sense of community. The people who organised it are part of a tight-knit, compassionate local network — and that alone is something rare and beautiful. It reminded me how important it is to look around us, to notice the people in our lives, and to put more energy into what we can change close to home. For me, I have come to appreciate how this — and understanding speciesism — is some of the best activism we can do.

As we dropped out of the alpine and the trail plunged into the treeline, I could feel excitement building—not just for a wash, but also for the challenge that lay ahead the next day.

As a final hurrah to our quick mission in the Northern Japanese Alps, Jake—who’d organised the whole trip—had found a tempting-looking segment on Strava. It climbed straight from the valley floor to the summit of Mount Yakedake, an active volcano in the region.

After a refreshing night back in the valley and a good soak in the onsen, we set off on foot again the next morning. The trail gently meandered downhill toward the mountain, and after a couple of hours of hiking, we crossed a river and looked up to see Yakedake towering above the forest. It’s not a particularly high peak, but it stands apart from its neighbours—unique, singular, and with a visible plume of steam curling up from its crater. One of those mountains that’s hard to ignore once you’ve seen it.

At the trailhead, we jettisoned everything we didn’t need. I carried just a litre of water, a gel, and my small Olympus point-and-shoot film camera. The goal? To try and take the Strava crown for the vertical kilometre from base to summit. Go light, go hard.

After four big days in the mountains, it wasn’t clear if any of us still had legs for a fast effort. But it felt like a fun, fitting way to end what had already been an excellent trip.

Signs at the bottom reminded us—rather ominously—that this was, in fact, an active volcano. Fortunately, the alert level was low. Though, if it had been higher, maybe it would have forced us to run a little faster.

We decided to give ourselves a voluntary handicap and set off at intervals, aiming to all reach the summit around the same time. Aoi-chan went first, then me, then Jake, then Yusuke. (Matt had hiked ahead to get some video footage of us running up.)

Suddenly, it all felt like a race. My adrenaline spiked as I set off in pursuit of Aoi-chan.

The first part of the trail was smooth and runnable—first a jeep track, then a playful ribbon of singletrack through the forest. As the slope steepened, things got more technical: ladders, cables, and rocky scrambles. The heat was oppressive, but breaking through the treeline brought a welcome breeze that cooled my sweat. I could see the summit ahead now—and Aoi-chan, not far in front.

It became impossible to forget we were running up a volcano. Sulphurous steam hissed from vents along the final slopes, and the earth beneath our feet turned to ash and grit. It felt like running on the moon.

I passed Aoi-chan about 100 metres from the top and glanced over my shoulder. Yusuke was close behind, with Jake not far off. The plan had worked—we all collapsed on the summit within minutes of each other.

After sweaty hugs and high-fives, we checked our watches. Somehow, despite the odds, both Yusuke and Aoi-chan had set new male and female records for the vertical kilometre. It was especially sweet for Aoi-chan, who had been incredibly nervous the night before and convinced the climb would take her over two hours. She smashed it.

We soaked in the view, looking back at the chain of mountains we’d spent the previous days traversing. It had been a special trip. Exploring new ranges, with new friends—and this felt like the perfect way to cap it all off.

As we jogged back down to the trailhead and the bus that would take us to Tokyo, we chatted about the mountains and why we keep coming back to them. It’s a wonderful thing—that you can fly halfway across the world, meet strangers, and immediately feel a deep connection through shared values.

Matt and Ellie from Summit Fever Media captured the whole trip on film—and they sum it up far better than I ever could. You can watch the trailer here and look out for the full film coming soon.

I hope you enjoy my selection of pictures from my point and shoot. I didn’t get many pictures on the way up for obvious reasons, but we stoped many times on the way down to sake in the scenery.

Rather than a rambling account of what was, essentially, a work trip, I figured a photo essay might be a bit less tedious for everyone involved.

Heads up: It’s a long one—best viewed directly on Substack rather than in your email. Enjoy!

Tokyo

Travel to Kamikōchi

Hike to Yakoo Sansō

Rainy day to Yarisawa Lodge

Mount Yari and the Daikiretto Ridge

Return to Kamikōchi

After we returned to Kamikōchi—and before catching the bus back to Tokyo—we had one final mountain mission to take care of. I’ll save that for the next instalment.

I happened to be visiting my parents in the Lakes when I heard that Andy was making a record attempt. I messaged him to ask if I could head out into the fells and take a few photos. Before I knew it, I was hurtling downhill at what felt like an uncontrollable speed, gripping my 40-year-old film camera and trying not to trip over my own feet.

I spent the day chasing Andy’s progress, popping up at different locations to snap photos, and reminding myself how perfect running is in the Lake District. Andy finished in 13 hours and 35 minutes—the fourth fastest time ever. A physical effort I can’t even begin to comprehend.

Running over the fells in this style is a pretty niche and closed-off part of the running world. The act of throwing yourself up and down mountains, often off-trail, usually in grim weather with nothing but a map and compass for navigation, doesn’t exactly attract mass appeal. When you’re part of the community that enjoys these things, it can feel full of camaraderie, built on a proud amateur ethos. But in reality, it’s also a deeply traditional community: not especially accessible, not diverse, and in many ways uninterested in engaging with life outside the fells.

I used to feel at home in that world. But with distance, I can now see that while fell running is full of camaraderie and grit, it’s also a culture that rarely asks difficult questions of itself. It’s not a space where conversations about gender, race, privilege, or inclusion tend to happen—and to be honest, I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable trying to have them there. A good example of this is the Fell Runners Association’s statement on transgender eligibility to compete in fell races. Guess what—it’s deeply transphobic.

So while Andy’s Bob Graham attempt genuinely impressed me—what he achieved was world-class—it also got me thinking about how rarely that world, in which Andy is deeply entrenched, intersects with broader social issues. As much as I love running, it isn’t all that important.

A few weeks ago, I posted a story on social media calling out a large sports nutrition brand for placing a topless, white, lean, aesthetically muscular male athlete at the centre of a targeted marketing campaign. I argued that this image—far from being neutral or aspirational—was, in fact, objectively anti-feminist.

Imagery like this is part of a broader system that upholds patriarchal norms in several ways.

It reflects the quiet entitlement of male bodies in public space—the assumption that their presence, comfort, and freedom are default, unquestioned. In contrast, women, trans, and nonbinary people navigate a constant, exhausting calculus around safety, clothing, and route choices—decisions that cis men rarely have to make.

It reinforces violent double standards: a topless man is “strong” and “free”; a topless woman is sexualised, judged, subject to harassment and assault. (And let’s also take a second to remember who is doing the sexualising, judging, harassing, and assaulting.)

The shirtless male runner often embodies a particular image: lean, muscular, white. This reinforces a cultural ideal that marginalises other body types, racial identities, and gender expressions. It subtly polices who gets to be seen as “fit,” “serious,” or “inspiring.”

Only two men messaged me in response. And I get it—I’m a white man too. We’re quite skilled at not thinking about these things, and if we’re being honest, it’s because they don’t directly affect us. So we don’t reflect. We don’t challenge. A lot of men probably disagreed with me, but I imagine most had just never considered the issue. I hadn’t either, until I spoke with my partner and started having conversations with people actually affected by this stuff.

Andy was one of the two men who reached out. He came to the conversation with curiosity. He didn’t necessarily agree with everything I said, but he listened. He told me about the kind of world he hopes to help create for his kids—one rooted in fairness and equality. The fact that he’s vegan already suggests he’s someone willing to challenge dominant norms.

We spoke about how even seemingly harmless acts—like a man being shirtless in public—can contribute to systems that oppress women. No, it’s not the same as verbal or physical abuse. But it exists on the same spectrum: a world in which men’s comfort and freedom are prioritised, and women’s safety and autonomy are under constant threat.

Andy raised the point that we shouldn’t simply shout at men to change; that blame alone won’t create transformation. I agreed—partly. But I also pushed back. If we’re always prioritising men’s comfort, where is the space to advocate for women’s rights? When women are harassed, policed, or attacked for what they wear—or don’t wear—we can’t pretend this is a neutral issue. We can’t pretend men aren’t the issue. And if they are, how do we talk about it?

In the end, it felt like a respectful exchange. We both reflected, and I think we both came away challenged. And hopefully, that’s a step in the right direction: two men having a real conversation about what it means to be men in a world governed by patriarchal norms.

So—thank you, Andy. Thanks for letting me be a small part of your incredible run last week. It was a privilege to witness someone perform at that level. More importantly, thanks for being open to the conversation.

The truth is, we both benefit from the same systems—every day, in ways that are easy to ignore unless we make the effort to see them. We move through public space without fear. We don’t get followed, stared at, or blamed for what we wear. No one questions our safety, or our right to take up space.

If we get to feel safe and free just by default—because the world’s built to make space for us—then the least we can do is be honest about what that freedom costs the people who don’t have it.

Edited and inspired by my partner, Alice.

I’ve got a huge backlog of photos from that trip — I was experimenting with different cameras and film stocks — and I plan to write more about our time there soon. But for now, I just want to share a few of my favourite medium format snowy shots with you from around the area we were staying (I’ve still got hundreds of 35mm frames to go through). Shooting in the snow is always a challenge for me, and I’m far from mastering it, but I spent a lot of time behind the lens on this trip. I hope you enjoy these results… and there’s more to come!

Feeling insecure? Capitalism.

Animal exploitation? Capitalism.

On the verge of burnout? Capitalism.

Racial injustice? Capitalism.

The apartment is messy? Capitalism. (Okay, maybe that one’s just me making excuses.)

The truth is, we find it fascinating (read: fucking disgusting) how the world has been organised in a way that willingly disrupts the health and happiness of the overwhelming majority for the gain of a (very) few. The more we talk about it, the more we can try to resist it.

The weight of capitalism is everywhere—woven into how families function, how children grow up, and how communities connect. What’s most unsettling is how deeply it seeps into our sense of self and the values we come to hold.

Something that plagues me—and probably most people at this point—is the fact that my self-worth is intrinsically linked to productivity. And for me, specifically, I feel that I need to be productive in an adventurous way to feel like I’m fulfilling my potential. If I’m not doing fun (or, even better, impressive) things in the mountains, I am not worthy of people’s friendship or respect—something I rationally know isn’t true but is wired into my subconscious. This mindset has no doubt been shaped by the fact that I grew up in this capitalist hellscape we’ve decided to call normality and early on joined a community where PBs and training routines are considered fun topics of conversation (I obviously agree).

Even something as free as spending time outside with loved ones isn’t safe from capitalism’s grip—somehow, it still gets folded into the pressure to do more, achieve more, optimize.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being active, I love being in the mountains, and I love the feeling of challenging myself and the genuine personal reward that comes with all that. But what I don’t love is that I feel guilty when I’m not doing these things. I should be able to sit down, read a book, cook some nice food, and goof around with my girlfriend without feeling restless at the end of the day because I haven’t trained, posted photos on Substack, or answered emails. But capitalism has a way of making stillness feel like failure.

Now, let’s make one thing clear: I didn’t draw the short straw when it comes to capitalism. I’m definitely on the winning end of the spectrum of injustice—I’m a middle-class white dude living in the Swiss Alps. But I guess that’s kind of the point. Despite all these advantages, I still see the negative impacts this system has on my life and the lives of those around me. Not only that, but as a vegan, I’m also hyper-aware of capitalism’s impact on animals and the natural environment at large. I see it. I’m aware of it. And I want to resist it, in whatever small ways I can.

And that’s why I’m writing this. Because the pressure to constantly do isn’t just a personal struggle—it’s a symptom of a system that values profit over people, the planet, and every living thing on it. It’s the same system that drives racial injustice, exploits workers, destroys ecosystems, and treats animals as commodities rather than sentient beings. It seeps into every aspect of our lives, convincing us that our worth is tied to productivity, that rest is laziness, and that joy needs to be earned. One of the most radical and impactful things we can do is reject that entirely. To slow down. To find meaning in things that can’t be measured or sold. To remember that our value isn’t in what we produce but in how we exist, connect, and care—for ourselves and for each other.

Fuck capitalism. We are all we have.

Some photographs…

A couple of days in Ticino reminded me of what it feels like to be rather than do. No pressure to justify the day. Just love, good company, and a lot of pizza.

Here are some photos from those days—days that felt productive in the best possible way.

Close to Home

It doesn’t matter where I am—I love starting a run either straight from my door or with a short public transport ride to the trailhead. Don’t get me wrong, I love big expeditions into the mountains or reaching wild, remote places that take effort to access. But nothing beats the simplicity of an adventure close to home.

With Friends

For years, I was brainwashed into believing that adventures are somehow more noble when done solo. Bullshit—at least for me. My most memorable days on the trail have been with others. Chatting away the kilometers, taking photos of each other, sometimes suffering together. It’s just more fun that way.

A to B

I don’t know why, but finishing somewhere different from where you started always makes a run feel more like a journey. It’s not something you can do every time, so when a plan comes together, it feels like a treat.

Cafés

I love the wilderness, but I hate carrying lots of stuff. I am much happier when a helicopter has carried my bubble water and salty snacks up the 1,000-meter climb. If you don’t feel the same, talk to me after you’ve spent 10 years in the Alps.

Scrambles & Summits

Mostly, I think, because of my distinct lack of talent as an actual runner, I prefer my outings to involve more hiking than running. So a scramble is more than welcome—bonus points if it ends with a summit. I got into running through climbing and mountaineering, and I haven’t been able to shake the need to reach the top of something.

Picnics & Naps

As you can probably tell, I am not the proud owner of many Strava segment records. A long run isn’t complete without some kind of languishing—whether that’s munching on sandwiches or falling asleep in the sun and waking up in a panic. The moral of the story? My perfect days out don’t involve being in too much of a rush.

What Have I Missed?

Dogs? Candy? A strategically placed mountain lake for a dip? A ride back down in a cable car to avoid running all the way back?

Hit me up your perfect trail run recipe?