simon blackbourn

@simonblackbourn.net

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plymouth // photographer // serial wanderer // ancient stone botherer // co-founder + zine designer at dartmoor collective // job: freelance wordpress developer // https://simonblackbourn.offprint.app/

A black and white photograph taken at West Kennet neolithic long barrow at sunset in summertime. The sun is behind me and the standing stones and me cast long shadows across the grass. Arable farmland is in the distance and the sky is clear.
A photograph made with a pinhole camera of a young man sitting on a BMX bike. The camera has a very wide angle of view, so the front wheel of the bike appears huge and the man quite small. The entire photo is tinted with shades of orange and deep pink.
A screenshot of Tidal's policy on AI generated music, theft and royalties.
A black and white photograph looking west along the B3212 road on Dartmoor. The photograph is taken standing in the middle of the road. It is long and straight, then bends off to the left as it reaches the hills on the horizon. Low, grey clouds obscure the tops of three tors.
Sunset over the Tamar estuary in Plymouth, UK
Bins and a tree at a motorway service station
A moody black and white photograph of an allotment in Plymouth on a very misty day. A shed, a greenhouse and various bits and pieces, including a rusty metal arch and a sack of compost. In the distance, some houses and two tall buildings loom up into the mist.
A blue bicycle leaning against a fern-covered bank next to a disused railway line that has been converted into a cycling and walking route. The entrance to a tunnel is about 50 metres away. The landscape around is forested with deciduous trees covered in ivy.
A brutalist concrete multi-storey car park photographed on a sunny day, with the pink blossoom-festooned branches of a tree above. The sky is bright blue with a large white cloud.
A shag (type of bird) sitting on rocks at Plymouth seafront. The bird is about 40cm tall, black with a splash of very bright yellow around its beak, and a little tuft of hair sticking up on top of its head.
A black and white photograph of a woman silhouetted against a dramatic sky. She has a rucksack no her back, a camera on a strap, wears a long skirt and hiking boots. Sunbeams shine down from darker clouds.
A headline from The Guardian reading "Mandelson documents raise questions about Starmer's decision-making"
A selection of 'Private property - keep out' signs seen on a 5km walk along the River Dart near Buckfast, Dartmoor.
A spoof Daily Telegraph headline: "Street photography is a Trojan horse for the complete dismantling of capitalism"
A lone, spindly, Hawthorn tree stands in a very damp bog on Dartmoor on a foggy January day.
A black and white photograph of a lone, wind-twisted tree on Dartmoor in thick fog.
Three oatcakes with peanut butter and kimchi on a white plate with a pattern of dark blue birds and stars.
An old triangulation point on Dartmoor. It is made from concrete, about 1.2m tall, various lichens are growing on it, and it sits in a very large puddle. The sky is moody, with rain clouds blowing across from the hills on the horizon.
The Land in Winter, by Andrew Miller.
Demon Copoerhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Standing stones at Challacombe stone row on Dartmoor. Plus a surprise guest appearance from my broccoli and stilton quiche.
A road on dartmoor stretches away into the fog
A poster for the film "We Are Making a Film About Mark Fisher", showing at the Jill Craigie Cinema, Plymouth, 5pm on February 24th 2026.
Trowlesworthy stone circle on a March day on Dartmoor. The stones are silhouetted on a the side of a slope, shrouded in thick, grey, fog. The moorgrass is brown and clumpy. Nothing else at all is visible. You can feel the deep silence.
Six books by Joe Tucker, Paul Lynch, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Elif Shafak, Denis Johnson and Barbara Kingsolver.
A hand-drawn card saying "May we live in less interesting times" in capital letters, with circles containing stars surrounding the writing.
A black and white photograph of the 'long stone' standing stone on Dartmoor. The stone is covered in lichen, has a pointed top, and the letters "GP" (Gidleigh Parish) are carved into it about halfway up. Kestor Rock is in the background on the left, and Thornworthy Tor just visible on the right.
A black and white photograph of the stone circle at Avebury. In the foreground is a massive stone about 2.5 metres tall, very irregularly shaped with many indentations and lumps. Five other stones stand in a curve behind and to the right. Several trees stand just behind those.
A t-shirt with the words "JUST SAY NO TO THE PSYCHO RIGHT-WING CAPITALIST FASCIST INDUSTRIAL DEATH MACHINE ".
A black and white photograph of a standing stone at Grey Wethers stone circle on Dartmoor. The stone is about 1.2m tall, and considerably wider at the top than the bottom, like a partially buried, inverted triangle. One side is vertical, the other slopes out at about 40 degrees from the vertical. It is covered in many different lichens and surrounded by clumps of long moor grass. On the horizon is the edge of Fernworthy Forest. It's a grey, cloudy day.
The film Ida on a cinema screen.
A solitary person walks from left to right down a slight incline, in front of pure white hoardings. Behind the hoardings, a dilapidated concrete building with several boarded up windows. In the foreground, three spindly trees, a planting area, and new concrete walkways.
A black and white photograph of Dartmoor on a misty autumn day. Low clouds hang over a tor. Clumps of tussocked grass, gorse bushes, a puddled track.
A photograph taken on a misty autumnal day in Plymouth, UK. An empty patch of wasteland with a buddleia growing on the left, a concrete building with some graffiti of a pterodactyl-like creature, a modern Moxy hotel in the background, and on the right-hand side behind that a tall residential tower block.
The cover of 'The Complete Short Stories Volume 1' by JG Ballard.
A panoramic photograph of a tiny security guard's cabin in an empty car park in Plymouth. Two tall brick walls lead the eye towards the white cabin. A single traffic cone sits to its left. In the background a tall building with about 30 windows visible and a green "Lloyd Bank" sign.
A screenshot of a Facebook post by the band Sonic Youth, with a washing machine with "2026" on it on a blue background.
"Helios" - A 7-metre wide sculpture of the sun at Devonport Market Hall in Plymouth, created from 400,000 photographs of the sun taken by NASA.
A black and white photograph of the empty Civic Centre building in Plymouth. It shows a grid of windows, some broken, and concrete panels. An art installation visible through some of the windows reads "WHAT WILL YOU MAKE OF IT?"
A black and white photograph of Foggintor Quarry on Dartmoor. The entire scene is shrouded in dense fog. In the foreground, two enormous lumps of granite, with many smashed pieces lying around. Behind, the lake formed by the flooded quarry workings, and the very vague outline of the far side of the quarry.
A discarded plastic pink chair next to two rubbish bins
Two traffic bollards that were vandalised with red St George crosses have subsequently had yellow and pink paint applied to make them look like Battenberg cakes.
A black and white photograph of one of the residential towers of the Barbican Estate in London. About 15 floors are visible, each identical, creating a repeating geometric pattern. The concrete is damp after rain.
A piece of street art consisting of an alien space invader character made out of small red, black and white tiles glued to a wall, each about 1cm square. It is a few centimetres above a flight of stone steps.
Two red signs placed one in front of the other, so that the text appears to read "Cyclists dismount and use pedestrians"
A black and white photo of Avebury stone circle. In the foreground are long shadows cast by the low sun of me and one of the standing stones. The stone circle itself curves round from the right. In the background, a large tree stands. The sky is clear.
A dragonfly on my hand.
The book 'The People's Act of Love' by James Meek.
The book 'Hagstone' by Sinéad Gleeson.
The cover of 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' by Bauhaus: a very grainy image of the shadow of a bat.
A Bluesky post about unwanted adult content, with the next post in the timline being the "Flashes app".
A pinhole photograph of a standing stone at Scorhill stone circle on Dartmoor. The stone is quite irregularly shaped and leaning slightly. The sky is blue with clouds. The colours are quite faded due to the film being many years out of date.
Behind all this scrolling lies a peculiar kind of loneliness. We consume endless streams of human creativity, yet the experience feels somehow isolating. We see more photographs in a single day than anyone in human history, but rarely engage with the people who made them. We appreciate in silence. We're more visually connected than ever, yet so many artists I've talked to describe feeling unseen, uncertain whether their work actually reaches anyone.
A time lapse video of clouds flowing over a ridge in the Italian Alps
A tiny wasps nest (about 8cm high and 4cm wide) on a wooden post. There are about 40 cells in the nest, some with beautiful gold and bronze colours in them. A single wasp sits on top of the nest.
A sheer rock face in the Alps with patches of snow
Trees swaying in a breeze on a warm summer evening in Norfolk
Trowlesworthy stone circle on Dartmoor. The landscape is shrouded in thick fog, with three stones visible. In the foreground, a taller stone leans over at about 30 degrees to the left, with two smaller stones behind, one stubby, the other pointed.
A black and white photograph of one of the white quartz stones at Duloe stone circle in Cornwall. The stone is very irregularly shaped, narrowing to a point at the top.