Back to reality.....

Now that Christmas and New Year have been and gone, it is back to work with a vengeance - and what a shock !! I was out today shooting a fly fishing feature with Nick Hart, for Trout Fisherman magazine, and to put it bluntly, it was bl***y freezing.............Nick did great and caught some seriously nice rainbows in tricky conditions, but I am just so glad I bought a polar Buff from Nick before we headed out. These innocuous things are completely invaluable for all kinds of fishing, both hot and cold - check them out here and then buy one from Nick like I did - click here to do so. You will not regret it. We could not survive without the standard Buff for fishing in the tropics, but they also produce some great products for those colder days. That wind was cutting.......

The light was really tough today, and in these kinds of conditions you really have to think on your feet and make sure to place the angler against the right background, and then expose correctly for it. Some shots you can do, and some you can't. Nick is easy to work with and knows exactly what I am after, and we came away with a good looking feature. I shot most of it on ISO 400 and my 70-200 f4L IS lens, to come in fairly tight and take out as much of the sky as possible. As I always say, these grey-day shoots sort the men from the boys !! I am always amazed at the instant control that my digital cameras give me for a shoot like this. Above is a photo of a big rainbow trout that Nick landed.

What a difference to shooting in the remote Seychelles before Xmas - flats shirts, shorts, suncream and roasting, unrelenting heat and humidity. But what would fishing be without extremes of variety ?

And of course - a Happy New Year. Here is to 2008.....................