Walking In A Winter Wonderland
Snow in Cornwall is a very rare event, so when the weather forecast predicted a chance of snow we really didn't think it would happen.
On my morning walk I posted on Twitter a video looking over the estuary with the sun shining, not even a frost. By lunchtime it was chucking it down with rain, no way it was going to snow. Half an hour later it had turned into a little bit of sleet and then it was heavy snow. Again looking out the window, thinking no way this will settle, but it did!
With ever growing excitement, I headed down to the harbour, to take some pictures of this rare occurrence.
The snow was coming down pretty hard and was building up very quickly. There is nothing more exciting that watching it settle and change the landscape into a winter wonderland.
After taking lots of pictures around the harbour, I headed home again to dry out a little.
Quick cup of tea and a change of clothes later, I was back out with the camera, this time heading out around Trit Troll, to look at the snow over the estuary.
Everything looks so much different in the snow, a walk that I do nearly everyday started to offer different views and images to capture.
Unfortunately the snow was getting me and my camera really wet, so wet that it stopped working!
Time to get back home fast and dry my camera out and pray that I hadn't killed it.
After a night in the airing cupboard, my lovely camera was back in action, thankfully as I had a guided photography walk booked in and I really wanted to take more pictures of the snow.
I headed down to the harbour again for sunrise, but unfortunately it was a bit of a lack lustre affair, so back home again for a cup of tea and a quick turn around ready to pick up my clients for their walk.
The very lucky clients were booked in for a walk from Padstow out to Stepper Point and back. It was very slippery underfoot as the snow had frozen over night, so after a little health and safety, please don't fall over and have you got enough layers on talk, we headed off to photograph the snow covered landscape.
As we left Padstow I started to work with Steve on getting off of Auto on his DSLR and how to think out about the composition of his photography.
The usual landscape looked very different in the snow, we headed down on to Georges Well to find the beach covered in snow, the sun came out and as we looked across to Rock there was a horse galloping along the beach.
With a quick lens change to our zoom lenses, we managed to capture the image of the horse with the snow on the beach and dunes behind. The sky was darkening over Stepper point making the snow stand out even brighter.
The dark clouds gave us a very small amount of rain for about 5 minutes - the wind was quite strong and cold, but we were wrapped up warm and carried on our walk up to Stepper Point, taking in the daymark and Butter Hole. By this time the snow had already started to disappear and by the time we returned to Padstow the roads and paths where completely clear.
It was such a treat to be out on a guided photography walk in the snow, giving my clients a very different view of this fabulous walk.
So if you fancy joining me for a guided photography walk, please give me a shout, I might not be able to offer you snow again for a very long time, but I can make sure you have a very enjoyable walk with the most wonderful scenery.
