Photographs and Light

Rosehips touched by frost, the old toll road, December 7th 2008

A very cold day - minus six degrees Celsius at breakfast time. The temperature rose to touch freezing point and then as soon as it started getting dark it dropped to minus three again. Not a breath of wind so in the lane just now - with a very reluctant dog - the branches were silhouetted against the sky, a magical sight. Bootprints from yesterday frozen solid, like footprints on the moon. A soft darkening of the light, the sky a fierce cold blue again with the peaches and apricots of the horizon-light warmed by a cold pink, the sky slowly filling with a cool pink and blue. Fine weather tomorrow, hopefully, and a cold night tonight.

Yesterday I met a man on the neighbouring farm who talked about the hamlet not getting the sun in the winter, this awareness of darkness that we have noticed before. They have the sun for another fortnight than we do, and lose it mid-November. He talked about the sun 'rolling across the top of the hill before it disappears'. Even with the clear mid-morning light, it was still gloomy on the lane today and the extent of the shadow was marked out onto the Moor by frost.

With this awareness of light I have come to realise that photography is important to my work; that I am a writer who uses photography in his work. I would no more go for a walk without a camera than I would without my boots; I am more likely to take camera than notebook. 'Documenting' is an important part of my work, establishing records and trails; in some ways the work is the trail. And this often means photographs. But it meant this morning that I could record the frost here, and especially the patterns of ice on a car - like opaque glass, engraved with leaves and stems.