InbetweenTrundle

That chasm of ‘what the fuck do we do now?’ between Christmas and New Year.

Having been downtrodden by some kind of horrible flu thing for a few days where my knees became more achey than the Craggy Island over 75s footie team (iykyk) I needed to get out and see something, breathe the air etc etc. And so did my Jasmine.

So off we went to a place I hadn’t been to for years, Fritton Woods, which is just a few miles from home. Like many photographers, sometimes some local gems do get forgotten about, now I’m not saying Fritton Woods is a landscape photography gem but I will need to return more and see it change over the seasons as there is a lot of potential there.

Talking of seasons, how nice to ‘feel’ a recent spell of winter weather, you know….actual, take your breath away cold. In all honesty I don’t deal with it as well as I used to but it is welcome nonetheless.

Amongst my many ailments, at present I have a trapped nerve problem in my elbow which is making carrying a tripod and adjusting it very difficult and bloody painful so I decided to just go hand held for this trundle with Jas.

One of the problems with this is that I do tend to shoot a lot of images with a very narrow area of focus so you have to be accurate, and usually that accuracy comes with the help of the trusty tripod. Being in pain wasn’t an option so hand holding was my only option and it was a real joy and I surprised myself with how well I did without the use of the tripod.

Maybe I can treat myself in the future to more days shooting without the tripod to give me that littler bit more freedom……. we shall see.

I’ve got to try and get my Jasmine a lovely compact camera that she can use. She’s the talented one and she has a good eye and I would dearly love to see her produce more imagery in the future. For now she uses her trusty ancient iphone but I’d like her to get used to using a camera and at the very least learn the very basics.

We trundled through the woodland paths and observed the trees and clouds and made images and I tried to recall walking here with my family many years ago. Only some of it was recalled by my ancient brain but many trees had disappeared since then and new trees were growing in their place. The one constant for me was the power lines, funnily enough in this location they are not particularly intrusive.

The woodland floor was as intriguing as ever, beautiful rusty tones, my tripod less freedom gave my poor knees a workout as I crouched down to look for compositions!!!!

We came upon a stunning area of birches and ferns, what a combination, especially in late afternoon light. I could have photograsphed this area for ages but I would only end up repeating myself so I allowed myself a few minutes to observe and I will return.

It’s amazing how some shoots just fire you up and light that spark that dwindles. This was ine of those shoots, none of the images I made were anything special and in truth many are too similar to recent images I have made but the exploration with my Jasmine was simply a lovely couple of hours.

With much love and thanks to my partner in trundling :)

Thanks for reading this, may I wish you and yours a happy and healthy 2026

J x