OM Regular's Mountain Photography Books

Longstanding OMer and professional photographer Simon Kirwan dropped us a line the other day to say he has two mountain photography books out at the moment, one covering North Wales and the other the Lake District and very nice they are too...

Pretty much does what it says on the tin, being a selection of photographs taken of the Lakes from the air. They're not aerial photographs in the google earth sense though, more landscapes taken from a high angle with a little bit of text telling you what they show.

The views aren't confined to mountains, but it's the hill vistas that are going to catch most OMers' attention and they're lovely. It's really nice seeing a familiar peak or tarn from a slightly different view and picking out paths and features you know seen from a different angle - so that's where we went wrong coming off Wetherlam in the murk :-) And hey, just how green is Buttermere? And oooh, you can see people on Sharp Edge.

Great for inspiration and post expedition browsing, here's a shot to whet your appetite, more at www.the-lightbox.com

Simon's other recent project is a more conventional set of landscape photos from North Wales and again, some of them are absolutely lovely.

The book splits the area into sections and covers both the obvious like Snowdon itself, in winter here, Tryfan, Idwal and so on, but also less obvious spots like Cadair Idris - the most obvious of less obvious mountains - the Aran range and swathes of coastline that many mountain freaks will be completely oblivious to... it made us want to go paddling.

A nice browse for anyone who loves Snowdonia; the best shots aren't generally the 'classics' but more lesser known places you might not even have considered.