Infrared treated with vignette – image of light snow in the Northern fields around the village of Prestbury in Cheshire.

I trudged through the fields (in inappropriate footwear) mesmerised by the transformation of the landscape and the sense of frost bitten (very painful) toes didn’t seem to matter at all. This total submersion in the art and craft of pictures taking and simple joy of recording my environment is one of the highest forms of pleasure that I know.

I do like the way these conditions make the landscape look so much more photogenic.

Climbing up the hill, steeper than it looks due to geometric distortion of a very wide-angle lens. I had to grab on to that barbed wire to get up here! Coming down was even more fun and I virtually slid all the way down on my backside holding precious camera aloft at all times — of course! I was taken by the simplicity of this scene, which has been enhanced by the optical effect of the lens. Can’t remember how I treated this image but it has been deliberately enhanced to create a more high key effect. It was (and still is) very cold indeed!

I am now preparing for my first ever gallery show which will be comprised of mostly B&W work with a mixture of landscape and ‘found object’ – like studies — joy of joys indeed!

The weather over the last few days has been very cold but also extremely scenic, we still have a lot of snow on the ground. I just had to get out with my camera and indulge that fascination for the kind of forms and vistas that others may miss. I now have quite a backlog of images to work with and some may find their way to this site, all should find their way to flickr.

I find these snowy settings to be quite inspiring and particularly amenable to mono treatments, though most of the images I have appear to be virtually mono in colour anyway —

This has been a year of strange good and bad luck for yours truly, flushed with no worries to almost destitute in the space of a few months and all compounded by less than wise job moves.

Next year has got to be a lot more stable, I have enjoyed the better times of 2009, specially the spring and early summer months when a sense of bohemian freedom gave rise to a state of permanent rapture. Conditions that can only be instilled by a feeling of complete autonomy and self-determination, my ideal state of existence as it happens.

Suffice to say that I am keeping a close eye on the fight against the king of trash, AKA Simon Cowell and his evil empire that seeks to promote the pre-eminence of all that lacks substance, style and meaning in contemporary popular culture. Over 100,000 people on Face Book have joined the fight. They are busily trying to vote up Killing in The Name by Rage Against the Machine for Christmas number one instead of the insipid, morkish and unoriginal identikit nonsense from the Cowell stable which has normally taken the spot.

I’m not as massive fan of RAM but it is the principal that counts and they do represent the idea of contemporary music as a vehicle for rebellion, provocation, protest and artistic design. Myself, I would have preferred something from the Jazz or new contemporaries set, a Battles tune for No1 would be quite satisfactory.