Over the past few months, as I’ve finally had the chance to sit with Wild Dartmoor® and turn its pages slowly, I’ve been taken straight back to the many thousands of images I sifted through to bring the book together. Every photograph holds a memory from hours spent out on the moor: cold mornings waiting for a break in the clouds, quiet afternoons when the herds moved past as if I weren’t there, and unforgettable moments when a foal crept behind me to tug at a jacket sleeve or investigate a loose camera strap.
When I was creating the book, I often said that I was happiest when I could disappear into the landscape and let the ponies live entirely on their own terms. Looking through the finished pages now, it’s the moments where they chose to acknowledge my presence that stay with me the most. A soft glance from a mare. A bold foal stepping closer. A stallion pausing just long enough for our worlds to overlap. These small gestures have become some of the most meaningful encounters I have experienced on Dartmoor.
Slowing down on Dartmoor means working with the moor rather than against it. The weather moves when it chooses. The herds drift, rest and rise again in their own rhythm. While making the book, I spent long hours settled into the granite, simply waiting for the landscape to unfold. Often I lost all sense of time as thoughts fell away, replaced by skylarks, wind moving through the gorse, and the quiet rhythm of hooves somewhere out of sight. Turning the pages now brings those moments back with surprising clarity.
Every now and then, something magical would happen. A gap in the clouds would send a shaft of light across the hillside and a grey pony would step into it as if placed there deliberately. A foal would peer around its mother with wide, curious eyes. A whole herd would flow around me, calm and unhurried, carrying on with their day as though I were nothing more than another rock on the moor.
These moments shaped both the photographs and my understanding of how deeply the ponies belong to this land. They taught me patience, presence and humility. They reminded me that the natural world does not hurry for anyone. It simply asks that we pay attention, and respect the lives unfolding around us.
As I look through the book now, I realise how much of Dartmoor’s quiet wisdom found its way into these images. I am incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported Wild Dartmoor® since its publication. Many of you have written to say which pages, herds or stories resonated most, and it has meant so much to know that the ponies and their landscape are reaching people far beyond the moor.
If you haven’t yet had the chance to explore Wild Dartmoor®, you can still order a copy. I hope that when you do, it brings a little of the wind, weather and wildness of the moor into your home.
With my thanks,
Malcolm