A Thousand (well, two hundred and seventy) words paint a picture

Imagine if you will, a foggy frosty morning. The sound of windscreens being scraped clear of ice fills the misty air as the sun hits “snooze” on its alarm clock, shivers a bit, sulks under a duvet of clouds, and finally reluctantly rises over the Epsom Downs.

A thousand well hundreds well, maybe a dozen different shades of silver gleam across the landscape. Hedgerows stand to stiffly regimented attention in the mist, looking as realistic and two-dimensional as plywood stage props. Every leaf, every blade of grass is outlined in a thick sparkling highlight of ice. The sky glows a watery pale golden colour above the minty-fresh silver-green fields, and a sporadic dusting of ice adorns the winding black ribbon of road.

“Gosh”, I think. “It’s a shame I haven’t got my camera with me to capture this. Granted, the way the trees are lurching out towards me through the fog would be impossible to capture, but how about some of those leaves? Hm. So I’d need the macro lens, and it’s a bit gloomy so a flash with a diffuser to soften the light, and probably a bit of pale yellow filter to keep the silver-and-gold hues. Which would take me about five minutes to set up, maybe more with cold fingers, plus I’d probably have to wait ten minutes for my camera to adjust to the temperature here. And then I’d probably spend at least ten minutes lying on my front in an icy field trying to get the camera-and-flash angle that I want. I’d freeze!”

I think a bit more.

“Gosh, I am glad I haven’t got my camera with me!”