FEW people know the quiet lanes, secret footpaths and pretty villages of the Peak District quite as well as Suzanne, the photographer best known as ‘Peaklass‘ to her army of followers on social media.
The writer and wanderer loves nothing more than escaping into the hills and dales that surround her home base in Hathersage.
And our picture choice to kick off the New Year shows a quartet of her stunning images showing the changing seasons across that glorious landscape.
An avid runner, walker and explorer, she’s never happier than when she’s outdoors and she’s passionate about every aspect of the Peak District National Park – its wildlife and communities, as well as the scenery.
Undeterred by bad weather she’s out and about in all seasons, eager to communicate her joy in the beauty of the place and its hidden treasures through daily pictures and musings.
Much of her content features on the Let’s Go Peak District independent visitor website where she and a team of other photographers and local experts showcase the beauty of the Peak District National Park to the world.
It also features in calendars, prints and cards that she sells through her own online shop.
But her social media feeds offer a more intimate, personal glimpse of the landscape she loves so much, with its weathered stone walls and inviting gates to mist-covered paths and frosty fields.
“The more I read the news, the more I retreat to the woods,” she says. “Nature is undemanding, quietly performing complex, beautiful daily miracles, whether or not we notice.
“Out here with the trees, there’s an odd reassurance that comes from feeling how insignificant we are, how fleeting.”
From picturesque villages to tranquil valleys or deserted footpaths, Suzanne knows where to find the perfect shot to capture the essence of place, savouring the quiet of winter mornings, the delicate beauty of hoar frost or the silence among the trees when the only movement is that of the mist rising to meet the sunlight.
It’s not hard to see why she loves the national park either, with its ancient woodlands, curving valleys and windblown moors, along with those picture-postcard villages where the locals know everybody’s business and where stone cottages with smoking chimneys still line the twisting lanes just as they did 400 years ago.
She’s written more than 70 Peak District walks, many bespoke routes for pubs, hotels or holiday accommodation providers, and is excited about the opportunity to inspire others to explore the local countryside, especially children.
She confesses to finding the dark of winter days very difficult, writing with delight of the winter solstice: “From tomorrow, the sunset ticks later minute by tiny minute and the light gradually returns, ready to coax awake the sleeping seeds and fill the forests with gold again.”
But equally, there’s little to beat the “feel-goodness” of a winter walk, she insists, “wrapped up warm, breath clouding, footsteps crunching, knowing there’s a hot chocolate waiting at the end”…
Winter may rage with wild winds and rattling branches, but its fading colours, rusting bracken and sullen skies have their own beauty, and Christmas lends a special magic to the picturesque villages of old stone cottages, the sparkling lights and decorated trees making homes look cosy and inviting.
Freshly fallen fluffy snow soaks up the sound waves from cars and people, softly blanketing the woodland floor and leaving only the bleating of sheep or the croak of jackdaws to disturb the peace.
Autumn feels like a quiet season too, she reflects, compared with the riot of birdsong and bursting colours of spring and summer. “Autumn is slow, peaceful, as if Nature is gathering her thoughts, musing on the year and tucking in for the night,” she says.
Whether it’s the lamps coming on one by one across the valley or a little church sitting “like a boat adrift on a sea of mist” with the distant hills watching on, waiting for the village to wake, she brings a touch of poetry to the scene, as well as those startling images.
Lingering a while by the brook in Padley Gorge, where your breathing slows to match the soft push and pull of the water between rocks, or standing under giant beech trees as the soft early morning light turns gold, she is adept at capturing the subtle nuances of the landscape, and encouraging others to find room to escape the interruptions of the real world.
“When the world is too noisy and sad, it helps to walk into the kaleidoscope of an autumn country lane,” she reflects. “To hear nothing but your footsteps and the leaves falling, and to feel the solidity of old trees arching their boughs over you. I hope everyone can find their lane…”
Suzanne’s photographs can be found on her website and social media accounts, including Twitter and Instagram.
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