'In a Perfect World'
by Charlie Waite

The two hour main road journey from Pisa to Siena is uneventful. Tuscany has a  reputation for being a 5 star visual feast and it’s no good having to pass through “quite nice” bits before you reach the best part. Like the best Italian chocolate ice cream, when you want it, you must not only have a huge bowlful but you must have it immediately. I have to have instant Tuscany.

I shall therefore have to arrive in Tuscany in the middle of the night and hopefully  in the rain. I would settle into a quiet layby that I have come to know fairly well, a few kilometres east of Pienza and I would wait. Above the town, a hint of deep magenta  expanding into orange will tell me that the rain has given way to clearer skies and I will prepare to see one of the most beautiful dawn views in southern Europe.

The rain during the night  is prerequisite to the performance as in a few moments, the hollows will fill with mist, and it is then that the landscape will appear  to swell and contract. Tuscany will be dressed fleetingly  in slow motion swirling chiffon.The entire scene,stretching twenty kilometres south and five kilometres  east and west, becomes a sublimely beautiful, mobile event. The Val D’Orcia, complete with cypress punctuations, which lies between the hill top towns of Pienza and St Quirico D’Orcia is quintessential Tuscan Countryside.At 5.30 am in the first week of June almost everyone will be asleep. I will have wondered at and I hope successfully photographed  the very best of Tuscan experiences.

Some coffee now and a little breakfast. Normally food is not part of the landscape photographers vocabulary: at least not until nightfall.There may just be time for a rather peculiar cup of coffee and a samosa filled with mashed vegetables in Alleppey,Kerala, Southern India. The early morning light a few hours after dawn is perfect for photographing the waterways inland from Alleppey, which lie sixty kilometres or so south  from Cochin.

My friend Attama will take me in his boat reminiscent of the African Queen, through the secretive backwaters which span out from Cochin in the north to  Kollam in the south.

For a photographer there are moments of real theatre in these early morning hours in the backwaters.I shall arrive just as the water people here begin their day with vigorous brushing of teeth and frenzied washing by the water’s edge.

Vivid electric blue saris will be thrashed against stone, and in another corner a solitary lady will catch my eye paddling herself to work in her own custom made kayak.She may be wearing a stunning carmine sari which will seem to fluoresce against the lush green of the rice fields.Here is the place to drop a splash of red into a scene. Roeg and Spielberg knew well enough the power of this colour.

A child confidently walking toward her water transport for her school day dressed no doubt in a smart uniform of sky blue. Her hair in immaculate long plaits like shiny liquorice interwoven. Perhaps a photograph will be taken amongst a straight line of coconut palms with blue sky streaked with high cirrus for the backdrop. This exotic tableau will reflect outward across the water and to my camera.

Everything glides in this region. The women in their elegant saris drift across the ground at the same speed as the water craft .How lovely the sari is and how absurd and indecent the mini skirt is by comparison.

Water will provide these gentle people with a playground for the children and highways and bathrooms for the entire community. There is no place for porcelain here nor any need.

I must away from India and head for the Scottish Highlands and an abrupt switch of seasons  for the remainder of the precious morning light. I shall sit at the entrance to Glen Etive staring up at the famous Buachaille Etive cone. The winter sun skims obliquely across her face making the corrugated clefts fill up with darkness and the serrated ridges glisten coal-black silver. A good brooding sky behind for gravitas and there may be a photograph here. I shall wait awhile. Perhaps then a hasty cup of coffee at the Kings House Hotel which stands alone at the edge of the eerie and desolate Rannoch Moor. Here is the place to stay to be on hand for some thrilling Glencoe visual menace.

Onward now from winter to the warmer months where the midday light is unflattering to the landscape. It is rather like turning on the central light in a lamp lit sitting room. The decor will look harsh and all atmosphere is turned off as top light is turned on.

It is time for a rest to allow the midday light to slip lower over the land. Just time  perhaps for forty winks on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Prince Charles may have fond memories of this skinny island set due north from Nassau. A hammock slung between two casuarina trees will be mandatory. A semi conscious peek will drop me in between the pages of the Caribbean travel brochure of azure skies and glaring white beaches. No doubt the soft thud of a coconut falling nearby will awaken me telling me it is time to leave this lovely yet two-dimensional scene.

The place for the afternoon will have to be  Provence in July or August.But  not the Cote. High up on the plateau above Digne I will be found wandering in, and wondering at the most extensive and beautiful lavender fields in  the world. These  long half-barrel shaped lines of purple porcupines stretch and recede in perfect precision across the landscape. If chance is on my side, perhaps there will be a good sky and sharp light for my photograph. With luck there may be a few bonfires during harvest. Now will be the time to walk through the smoke for an aroma that beats the best of any French perfume.

The Camel estuary, North Cornwall will be my dusk setting. First I should like to find the boat in which my father taught me to sail. A sturdy clinker- built Yachting World Knockabout. I should go for gentle run up towards Wadebridge, the mainsail numbered with the familiar 17 flopped out and barely filling in the gentle breeze. I shall  have to  insist on a temporary ban of power boats. Two very different sets of emotions are generated here; the sexy ripping through the water of the speedsters and the contemplative, sedate float of an evening sail. The latter for me every time.

As the tide turns to drain this heavenly estuary, I must get back to sit up on the lump of Bray Hill with my back to St Enodoc where I shall wait for low water and evening light to combine for a fleeting photographic moment. At low tide the ever changing ribs of sand with back lit mercurial pools between will echo the (wished for) pink fringed mackerel sky above. Perhaps for an extra emotional tug a few Betjeman lines may come to mind and  from it’s new moon shaped  bill the haunting  wail of the curlew will be crucial to the moment.

Supper and Vino now....anywhere!