These bracken ferns on the moors in Yorkshire are substantially shorter than those in the lake district; nevertheless, they nearly engulfed my wife, Anna, as she tried to follow the path cut between the fiddleheads that popped out from the skeletons of heather, long since overcome by the dark green ferns. This photograph was taken at dusk outside of Haworth, England, where the Brontë sisters lived and wrote. Their stories were heavily influenced by the moors and the hardy people who lived on them (especially Wuthering Heights). Indeed, in this photograph, on the horizon to the left, there is a lone sycamore next to the barely perceptible ruins of a farmhouse (Top Withens), which is said to be the inspiration for Wuthering Heights. My mother-in-law grew up among the ferns on the moors, and she is closer to nature than anyone I have ever met. Yorkshire does something indelible to a person. The first time you walk over the top of a moor and look down into the Worth Valley at the train steaming along the tracks towards Leeds, you realize that you are in a living snapshot of a much simpler time.
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ST. AMAND PHOTOGRAPHY 