Apparently, it’s de rigeur, when one reaches a certain age (which – at least according to our daughter – I apparently have) to be downbeat about this winter playground but I just can’t help myself.

Firstly, I was just as excited as my two children when the snow arrived. Possibly more so. I’m not sure it’s very grown up to be peering out of the curtains at 6am to see if it’s settled. But there I was, my nose pressed excitedly against the frost-encrusted glass hoping that school would be canceled! The whole thing took me right back to my North Wales childhood where, at least in my head, it snowed each and every winter (oh and Curly Wurlies were significantly bigger and you could still buy a quarter of sweets – there really was nothing like the taste of paper bag inextricably attached to your sherbet pips!)

Secondly, it’s a dream come true when it comes to creating beautiful images – be it portraits or landscapes, snow-ridden light is gorgeous to work in. All in all I couldn’t be happier (though it does have to be said that we use a 4×4 for the business so the snow isn’t quite so restricting as it might be for some – grit or no grit!)

Part photographer. Part delinquent.

Anyway, given that it’s due to thaw over the next few days, here are a handful of personal images I captured while ‘off-duty’.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, it’s not all fun in the snow – we have also been working flat out in it – this is perfect light for portraits and we have quite a few to show you in the coming weeks.

Enjoy

Oh, and thanks to Jon Hook for grabbing the shot of Sarah and me with Harriet on the sledge. Brilliant!

Since getting up this morning (at some ridiculous hour as the whole family had been excited about the new snow falls since it started last night) we have built a snowman (a grandiose 9ft specimen that was alarmingly phallic), thrown snowballs, tried to get an avalanche to occur off our thatched roof (with some degree of success I might add), been sledging on trays (and on a piece of old plastic and on a Land-Rover inner-tube), drunk mulled wine, driven the 4×4 to places other cars can’t get to (before drinking the mulled wine I should add) and generally behaved more like kids than our kids.

A hot chocolate and an early night with a comic book (OK, I admit it. I’m showing my age. Of course, the kids would rather go to bed with a Nitendo DS) and the transformation would have been complete.

I know it’s dangerous, our heating bill will be huge and we’re all in danger of running out of gas (or milk for that matter – why do people insist on panic buying? One snowy day and the entire South East of England is risking a trip to A&E by bustling it’s way to whatever local shop is in reach to buy as much milk, bread and cat-food as they can carry home) but it’s just so lovely!

Oh, and it’s also a joy to photograph.

Enjoy!

PS. Photo credit to Jon Rowland for the shot of Sarah and I getting to grips (or, more accurately, failing to get to grips) with the large plastic sheet!

Waking up to find six inches of pristine snow on the ground took me right back to my childhood! Fantastic!

I had intended to grab the camera and go and take some stock shots of the village and various snow scenes, but one daft dog, our two unbelievably excited kids and over 30 years of frustrated child in me and the photography rapidly went by the wayside.

So in lieu of the intended sequence of carefully crafted commerical images, what you see here are a handful of shots – nonetheless decent shots I hope – taken during the respite from intense bouts of snowball fighting (apologies to Ollie Gascoyne and Damian Natale – I seem to recall a lot of snow ending up in their 4×4!); snowman-building (one of the biggest we’ve ever done – as we were leaving, complete strangers were photographing each other next to it!); igloo-architecting (it could seat four) and voluminous hot chocolates (once again, The Little Italy Coffee Shop proves to be a lifesaver).

Now why can’t we have winters like this every year?!

Cheers
P.

PS. I am sure I shouldn’t say this, but here’s a big ‘thank you’ to all the head teachers who kept the schools in Haddenham closed for a couple of days. Me an’ the kids LOVED IT!

And we have a load of images for our stock library ranging from familiar piste images to the rawness of the glacier in the Vallee Blanche through to some beautiful scenic shots.

Oh, and then I got stuck in Geneva and so we also have a whole series of images from there – somewhat unexpected but still saleable images!

All good fun

Cheers
P.