Terror is a potent phenomenological, emotional ingredient, helping drive us, helping us to know we are alive.

Terror management theory, awe, the sublime - as the Romantics would have termed this state - the denial of death, the “Obscene Mystery”as Sontag calls it, that our negative emotions are more powerful than positive emotions. To paraphrase Jordan B Peterson, "We can only be completely and utterly dead but you can occasionally be so much happier.” Finding solitude, inspiration and awe in the mountain landscapes, both physical and of the mind, Macfarlane, “As de Saussure said, risk-taking brings with it its own reward: it keeps a "continual agitation alive" in the heart. Hope, fear. Hope, fear - this is the fundamental rhythm of mountaineering. Life, it frequently seems in the mountains, is more intensely lived the closer one gets to its extinction: we never feel so alive as when we have nearly died.” Nestled in amongst the high peaks of the Lake District National Park, one photographer’s search for meaning, exploring phenomenological ideas which oft’ present themselves in virtual cascades through existence preceding essence, attempting to knit together a greater understanding of what it means to be present in the world, and to record these phenomena with words and images.