I wrote back in February this year how I had been photographing walks for Exmoor Magazine lately. The autumn edition has just been published which again includes a featured walk illustrated with my images and included one on its cover too.
This was the second walk I had done for the magazine last October. The writer had yet to walk the first planned route when I took a risk and did the walk after seeing the weather forecast. A few days later the writer determined the walk was too challenging for what she was aiming for hence the second walk at Withypool. I had a great day on the first walk and was very pleased with the images I had made that day, so I was very happy to have done it. The second walk was great too. The weather threw just about everything at me bar snow, so I enjoyed a lot of varied conditions, as well as a couple of good soakings.
My best image of Portford Water a little way from Withypool made it onto the cover and my favourite into the feature, much to my surprise. I was expecting these ponies on Withypool Hill to run away as I approached them so I put down my tripod and slowly walked over at an angle I hoped wouldn’t spook them. I worked, but rather than gallop off down the hill like I thought they might, they decided my tripod was far more interesting than anything else around and all wandered over to it to investigate. Eventually they got a bit too excited and knocked it over, so I decided it was time to intervene and rescue it. Not exactly the natural shot I was hoping for, but it was a fun picture. I only included it in the final edit to the magazine as a bit of a joke not expecting it to be used.
