The Beast from the East

What a name for a weather front! But it was all true – and the chilling temperatures of The Beast met the snow that came with Storm Emma to give us a fantastic few days of proper weather. I’ve seen snow before and I’ve known it cold, but neither of those have been experienced at the levels we’ve had for the past few days. We’ve had -7 celcius combined with wind chill of -13 celcius and some snow drifts are around 3 – 4 feet high in our area of England.

Luckily, I didn’t need to travel today and was able to wrap up warm with the uni books. I took a well earned break exploring the countryside and grabbing a few photographs though, thanks to my Dad’s 4 x 4.

We found a Lapwing (bird) on our travels! He/she was sitting on the side of the road, freezing. We didn’t think it would make it but my Mum wrapped it up in her scarf and I think it spent the afternoon by their fire thawing out and is now doing well again!

We also (thought) we rescued an elderly lady making her way down the road. It really wasn’t safe for anyone to be walking but she was braving it – we asked her where she was going and took her there, turns out she was going to someone’s house to do their ironing! It was sort of a good deed but gosh… dedication to the job there.

The snow has stopped and a thaw is forecast over the weekend – I’ve never seen such constant snow before, followed by freezing rain – which really is a thing. We have intermittent heating and hopefully that will be fixed over the weekend but in the meantime we’re wrapping up warm and keeping calm! Enjoy the photos… it’s been a while hasn’t it…

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Frosty tales

“All you’ll own is earth until you can paint with all the colours of the wind.”

There are some things that just need to be captured on camera, to be remembered forever. Not huge moments – not all the time. Today whilst we were wandering through a frosty forest, the first thought that hit me when I raised the camera and took a shot of nothing but nature was… ‘It’s so nice not to be photographing someone’s face.’ Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved the Weddings that we’ve had this year and every single one has been fantastic and such an experience. But today was about photographing anything. And it felt so good to be doing it again.

Photographs don’t have to be perfect, but I was impressed with the below capture. Fog, sunshine, rays, cobwebs…all so hard to capture spontaneously and never how they showed up in real life. I looked closer at the below image and noticed the cobweb hanging down through the middle of it, covered in ice. I was almost annoyed at the interruption within my perfect scene. Almost. Then I realised it was all part of the perfect scene.

Today we had some bits and pieces to do so we decided to take hot tea and just drive for a bit, and capture what we could of the morning fog. A curse for so many but a delight for photographers! All of these captures were taken literally on our doorstep. The forest that borders where we live is home to some beautiful scenes, it’s just a huge pain to get to with the dog as the road leading to it has no paths or pavement. So she doesn’t feature today sadly.

So back to those small moments that need to be captured every so often. Today I ticked a few off the list – an image of exactly what it looks like when all around you branches are creaking and frost is melting. That spiders web gently swinging laden with frost. The tiny dew drops framed in sunlight. The shadow of trees as the sun streams through them. Everyday things sometimes, but so beautiful when you have the time to stop and look at them all.

New Years resolution for 2017 – there will be more Photos. Promise.

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