Don't Fence Me in....

Eyeing up my long Tamron SP 70-300mm zoom, he gently enquired if I had seen 'anything interesting'?

I get quite guarded at such a common question. Folk assume that you're a birder and that the only possible thing worth looking at, let alone photographing in the countryside is something often small, brown and frequently scruffy!

"Just bits of the landscape", I replied. He looked back at me, engagingly, unassuming yet friendly. His dog that he was out walking had already introduced itself to me, tail wagging and since legged it far up the slope and into the field that I had just walked down. 

The quite elderly man didn't say anything else - and nor did I. He eventually waved cheerily and slowly (I mean, quite slowly) made it up the quite steep slope. I felt like adding to my list of what I was out taking this very early morning 'perfect people compositions, keep on walking, old man!'

I snapped as he went but only this final one, where I also had zoomed out quite wide, where his figure is clearly outlined against the light that really worked.

I hope that when I'm his age that I'll still be walking up a hill at sunrise and have occasional chats with passers-by. And not to have too strong opinions about them either. That was refreshing.