First Trip of 2026

Last week, 08/01/26, the UK was under severe weather warnings for high winds, blizzards, floods, encroaching glaciers and all manner of life threatening phenomena. Thursday evening started off cold and breezy, with some rain moving in, so when the snow started to fall just after 8pm, I wasn`t particularly bothered. As it turned out, for once, the weather warnings were real, Cornwall had gusts of 100mph winds (99mph for the fact finders on social media)and the Midlands where I live got a real good covering of snow, 3 inches where I live and 6 or more 4 miles away. Thinking the rain would have prevented the snow from sticking I departed for work, wondering why there were no other cars on the road, and waited patiently at work for the others to come and open up... 45 minutes later I got a message saying go home. I did exactly that, probably the 1st time I have ever done as I was instructed, and went and collected my brand new camera... yes... I finally bought myself a brand new camera, my very first... my others were bought used because I`m tight like that.

I drove to a spot just out of town on the Bridgnorth road where there is a dead tree in the middle of a field, far enough from civilisation for the little people to have beat me there with their sleds. Here I shot a few images waiting for the light to improve which it didn`t, so I went home to see what greatness my new camera had captured.... might have helped if I had actually figured out my camera BEFORE going out, anyway, I was too excited for such trivialities and just plowed on regardless. This was what I managed to salvage, from the set of images I took, a slightly Hi-key minimalist style shot.

When I returned home I decided to rectify my lack of new camera knowledge and proceeded to fiddle and faff with the settings until I had them truly cocked-up and myself about as confused as it was possible to get, and I had to call on that old stalwart of every photographer, the Restore to Factory button. I then reached for the camera I have been using for the past 5 years and mirrored the setting from that, which I should have done in the first place but didn`t. Next was a message to my usual partner in photographic misadventures, Fekawee, and plans were laid for a trip on the Saturday morning to photograph some stags over by Chasewater Coutry Park near Cannock.

Saturday dawned freezing cold, and the snow still lay about the ground, only it had turned into ice so a 30 mile drive was not really the best of ideas, but we never have best ideas, only stupid ones. We parked (abandoned?) the car at the visitors centre and plodded and slipped our way over frozen ground toward the railway tracks where deer have often been reported. And about a mile along, movement caught our eye and in the trees was a herd of deer, 2 young bucks and 3 doe`s. Up came the cameras, and the sound of Fekawee`s Nikon shutter had them scattering in all directions, in reality the deer weren`t bothered by the noise in the slightest, the 2 young bucks were very vigilant, watching our every move and they came out of the trees, and I kid you not, posed for a few photos, and skedaddled away over the railway lines and out of view. Having already walked a mile, we turned and walked back, I am called a Lazy Photographer for good reason :) As we approached the lake again, we saw the Shed (or Shack) was open and decided to see what their coffee and cakes were like... blooming lovely, and well worth visiting. While eating our cake, the sun was shining brightly and the waterfowl were close by, Mallards looking exceptional in the sunlight so I fired off a few shots before heading back to the car and heading home.

Young Buck posing

Majestic Angry Birds

Now, once home, I proceeded to upload my images to my laptop and see what brilliance I had captured, to find these ^^^... one setting I had overlooked was changing my image capture from Jpeg only to Jpeg + RAW so my images were all B&W... I won`t upload the Mallard images for obvious reasons. This oversight has since been rectified so our next misadventure will have colour captures at least, although I guarantee that I will overlook something else in the settings or it`s entirely possible that I leave my memory card in the laptop and not get any pictures at all.

Until my next episode, please take care and stay safe, and don`t take life too serious.