GORDON STAINFORTH TALKING TO GRIFF RHYS JONES ABOUT MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY IN 'MOUNTAIN', EPISODE 2: THE LAKE DISTRICT (broadcast on BBC1 on Aug 5, 2007)

On August 5th the BBC broadcast episode 2 of "Mountain' hosted by Griff Rhys Jones (www.bbc.co.uk/mountain). In this episode Gordon Stainforth took Griff into the Lake District to talk about mountain photography. This is a transcript of what Gordon said.

"It might sound pretentious, but I'm much more interested in the place, and in nature on a grand scale, than I am in photography. It's the place that I'm interested in and, on a really grand scale, like Coleridge, I'm more interested in how we relate, really, to the cosmos and the whole natural landscape.

Too many photographers think that photography is just about photography. It sounds ridiculous, that. What I mean is: it's about the place and one's feelings for the place, and how it touches the imagination. It's not just a thing of getting a nice visual image; it's to try and give something of the huge landscape we're in, and something of one's feeling for the place, rather than just a pretty, calendar-type image."

Gordon Stainforth was born in 1949 and has been climbing and taking photographs since he was 16. He is the author of four best selling mountain photography books; Eyes to the Hills, Lakeland: Landscape of Imagination, The Cuillin, and The Peak: Past and Present, and has been involved with many productions in the film industry most significantly as an Assistant Editor on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. You can read more about Gordon, his life and work at: www.gordonstainforth.co.uk. He lives in Derbyshire.

You can see more of Gordon's photography at his UKClimbing.com gallery: www.ukclimbing.com/photos