There are only a few irrefutable facts in life. You will eventually get a water meter. You will pay taxes. If you went to a Welsh school, you did do country dancing (in my case, with a lack of enthusiasm that barely kept up with my distinct ineptitude.) And you cannot, no matter what you believe, control the weather.
Rain? No problem.
Harsh sunshine? No problem.
Snow? No problem.
Richter scale gales? No problem.
Fog. Ah yes, that stuff of Stephen King thrillers. Cold. Clammy. Haunting. Fog.
I’ve never really photographed in fog as such – I have taken photographs of fog. But that is not the same thing at all. Photographing group portraits through fog is an entirely different beast.
For a start, it’s finger-numbingly cold. Not that romantic, crystal clear, frost type cold that makes you feel good to be alive. No. This is a wet, penetrating chill that eats its way through your clothing and sucks the feeling from your digits. The type of cold that makes your eyes (and nose!) drip and drizzle uncontrollably. And, in an obvious twist of the unfortunate – certainly if you’re a photographer – you can’t really see too much. True, the flat, wrap-around light it creates makes for the most enigmatic and gentle face portraits imaginable. However, if you cannot see your clients through the gloom then this is not much use.
Still, nothing ventured as they say.
So here we were in Wendover Woods in Buckinghamshire with the Baldwin family. And it was absolutely worth the risk. I grant you it took the rest of the day for my fingers to come back to life, but the shots we got were gorgeous. Really unusual and atmospheric. And, as the fog ebbed and flowed around the hill tops like some ghostly ocean sloshing around the foot of some magical inland coast, we had moments of inexplicably stunning sunshine which flung warmth and light at us with such force that it took your breath.
And then by way of apology, would close in again leaving us pulling coat zips back up and tightening hoods and scarves.
A true winter shoot that produced beautiful and distinctive images.
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