A new beginning

I've been reluctant to join the blogging community, it has to be said. As a teenager, I asked every year for a new diary for Christmas - every year I would get one - and every year I would last around 2 weeks before giving up writing. In retrospect it was probably a blessing: I somehow managed to cram more embarrassing moments into those first two weeks than I have in the last 10 years.

So it is with some trepidation that I begin here. This time though, it is different. I promise...

I'll leave you for now with a short series of Polaroids that seem quite fitting for this 'new dawn' - all taken at dawn in Richmond Park on October 1st. It turned out to be the hottest October day on record and was a mild morning. I don't often cope well with the cold, even less so when carrying a Billingham full of Polaroid cameras - but this early morning was less awful than I had predicted.

These shots were all stored in my pocket after shooting and with little more than body heat, the warm tones shine through and the colour is surprisingly accurate. If you haven't been to Richmond park, I do recommend it - I have never seen so many photographers, though a different and more predictable type with huge lenses, wearing khakis and looking more like fishermen.

Whenever I came close to the shot I wanted, some new person would emerge from the gloom and ask "what camera is that?" - I'd reply "a Polaroid camera". They, as ever, would ask "can you still get film for that?". At this point a sarcastic comment always comes to mind, but I refrain... and sadly the shot has gone, and the deer have moved too far for my fixed lens to capture, meanwhile their zoom lens would emerge and I'd hear the familiar quiet clunk of a digital shutter firing off a hundred frames a minute. At least it meant I one fewer image to scan...