Walking about the gardens in the snow. It's cold and you have to work quickly. The images look almost B&W but they are in colour honestly if you look carefully. They are simply a reflection of the chilly conditions and the light.

So first things first, when it's cold like this you don't want to be out in too long, you don't want to have to change lenses at all, you want to work quickly and you want your kit to be weather proof to a recognised standard. So, for example, a standard 12-45mm zoom of (24-90mm equivalent) with XP-1 weather sealing on an IP53 weather resistant rated body (say an OM-5 II) are ideal.

Long vista shots seemed to be the order of the day with paths and structures used to give depth and lead your eye into the picture emphasising the cold, snowy nature of the scene.

This was obviously how my mind was working this day as each picture seemed to be a variation on this theme of cold empty spaces vanishing into the distance.

The architectural nature of the trees stood out starkly against the greyed out sky. Beautiful things your tree even when bereft of their leaves. What would the world be without them? Total rubbish is what!

Then suddenly in a more sheltered part of the gardens there was less snow on the paths and the evergreens had protected some of the flowers of the hardy winter flowering shrubs from the extremes of the cold and preserved their colour. A weird and unreal juxtaposition of extremes it seemed. You never know what you will encounter round the corner!