Nick Cobbing and some

Nick Cobbing’s overhaul of his website is just the excuse I needed this morning to sit here with a coffee and utterly lose myself in the majesty of his photography and storytelling.

Cobbing understands that if we are ever going to get to grips with the willful and criminal degradation of planet earth then the beauty of this world can be as much an agent for change as grimy pictures of pollution. That inspiration in his work is as powerful as shock and will often linger longer.

I was lucky enough to spend much of my time at the BBC recording in the natural world and I think those moments of awe, standing in an ancient oak forest at dawn, or hurling snowballs off one of the rising peaks of Meteora, have done more to change and sustain me than any others.

Nothing beats being there, but Cobbing’s eye and words might just be the spark to shut your computer down and get a little closer to the place where we all come from.

And on that note I don’t understand why somewhere like The Tate or Natural History Museum doesn’t do a massive show of prints focused on the environment? These are the among the most important stories of our time and given the success of series like Frozen Planet on the BBC, stories that clearly capture audiences attention. It would be epic …