This photograph was made in the twilight of a very cold and still winter afternoon. The quiet light produced at this time of day is delicate and creates an exquisite tonal scale that lends it self perfectly to the subject.

I had planned to shoot an outcrop of trees on the Whitby Moor. The snow was still fresh and deep. This part of the moor is notorious for heavy snow. The A171 Whitby to Scarborough road is a dangerous road in the winter and the easiest access to my trees is from a small access track to the moor from the main road. I did not fancy parking up the Defender in these icy conditions, so I chose to lay up on the Harwood Dale road and walk  the extra distance. This route took me through thick forest with no paths, so I decided to follow deer tracks as I figured they knew the terrain best.

I scrambled over a barbed wire  fence and I was now on the open moor knee deep in fresh powder snow. I approached my chosen trees very carefully from a distance, as I did not want to leave my foot prints in the foreground of my photograph to be.

I know these trees well and have photographed them several times. Today, was very special because the snowy conditions isolated  the structure of the weathered pine perfectly. I made one 8 x 10 negative using HP5 film with my Deardorff.

Two days later, I listened to the national news and learned that due to an accident the road had been closed. The artic weather conditions forced travellers to abandon their vehicles and take overnight shelter in a nearby Inn. The location of the accident was at the junction of the Whitby A171 and the Harwood Dale junction!

Last Saturday Andrew Cheetham and I went out exploring for snow photographs in Broxa forest.. The powder snow was deep off the beaten track and the forest path that I took to revisit a vantage point for a possible photograph had a fresh 6 inch layer of  snow hiding all the ruts and pot holes that I knew existed on this  remote track. It was fun ploughing through the fresh snow in the defender in low ratio gear box we securely and effortlessly pushed  on through the snow. The image I was looking for was a 30 minute treck from the defender. Wading knee deep through the white powder to my vantage point, the trees that I had in mind were frozen and looked beautiful however the light was fading fast and I had not left enough time to return to the defender for my Deardorff. Well it is heavy and I was not convinced that the light would be right.

As  we headed back home down the snowy track in the twilight of the late afternoon we came upon a group of lads trying to push a transit van out of a snow laden rutt in the track. To our amusement the van had been towing a Canoe along as a makeshift sleigh!?

The four young men seemed quite unaware of their plight out in the wilderness of  Broxa forest at dusk with the light and the temperature falling. They calmly asked if  I would mind towing them  out of the ditch which I did. They had been digging out and pushing for about 2 hours and as far as I could gather did not seem at all concerned  about the predicament that they were in.