Wanderer Above the Peaks – A One-Shot Story

My girlfriend has been living with me in the UK for the past five years, and in a few months’ time we plan to move permanently to France. While she’s been here I haven’t managed to show her much of the natural beauty of the place (we’ve been stuck in the London vortex), and so in desperation to see something nice before we leave, we decided to pay a visit to a friend of ours who lives in the Peak District, a national park in Derbyshire, north of England.

The photo was taken towards the end of a leisurely hike up the hill closest to his house in the High Peak region. It was an uncannily sunny day for that part of the world, with nay a cloud in the sky. However by the time we reached this vantage point the light had begun to soften, giving us colours perfect for the Portra 160 film I still had in my camera after a trip to South America a few months previously. The slow speed of the film, shot at ISO 100 to give some shadow detail, meant I had no option but to open the aperture to f5.6 — hence the soft look of the peaks beyond. The camera was the 1937 Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta, a marvellous 6×9 folder which regularly surprises me with the quality of the images it produces.

Being a fan of romantic painting, our friend chose the location — and his pose — in homage to Casper David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. Though the Derbyshire hills may not be as dramatic as Friedrich’s tempestuous scene, I think my friend cuts a commanding yet wistful figure above his beloved peaks. Of course, my girlfriend took exactly the same photo on her smartphone. In fact, she took four or five. But I think the warmth and softness of the film is a much more fitting tribute to the oil paining my friend wanted pay tribute to.

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