Over years I have filled my journals with notes, quotes, and photographs too. Some of those journals traveled from New Zealand with me, and many many new ones have been filled since I flew.
I love quotes and extracts. They seem like small pieces of intense wisdom or pure beauty but I keep them all locked up in my journals. So ... I've decided to go through my extensive, sometimes unexplored, photographic archives and merged some of these collected wisdoms, from others, with my images.
I met with Colin Monteath, author of today's quote, a couple of times during those years before leaving New Zealand. And even then, I still didn't know quite how to describe him here. Photographer, mountaineer, adventurer, Antartic expert, writer ... and probably so much more that I don't know about.
Anyway I found one of his books here in Antwerp, wrote to him full of laughter because it cost a lot more than he was selling them new but still, I was working at the time. How could I resist.
I've never regretted buying that book. I found the quote, the one on the photograph below, and feel it gives a good sense of the man himself.
As for the poppies. That was me, crawling around on the edge of the church garden in Mesen, out on Flanders Fields, here in Belgium. I had some time and really wanted a good poppy shot. 