Two views of Old John, in Bradgate Park, taken less than a month apart in December 2009.

There are so many dreadful images of this building, and it is such an uninspired choice of location perhaps because it is so often photographed, but I still see it as a bit of a challenge.

Old John with rocks in the foreground, Bradgate Park

This is my favourite of my shots that feature Old John – I prefer the building to be in the distance, that way its slightly easier to hide how uneven the structure is – even then I have to spend a long time trying to work out if my shot is level.

The heavy cloud cover here (and use of the Cokin ND4 soft grad) allowed me to get a nicely balanced exposure, retaining a lot of the rich late autumn colour.

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Old John in Winter, Bradgate Park

No photographers collection should be without at least one picture of Old John in the snow :)

This was snapped on the way back to the car after an early morning start. I’d never really noticed this path before, but the light sprinkling of snow picked it out perfectly.

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Bradgate Park in Winter

A small amount of snow just before Christmas gave me the ideal excuse to get up nice and early on a Sunday morning to go to Bradgate Park. When I arrived, long before sunrise, there were only two sets of prints leading into the park from the Old John car park – someone taking their dog for a walk.

The sunrise itself was rather uneventful – a cloudless sky, a bit of a glow and then the sun appearing – not really my favourite. Perhaps I could have made more out of it if I’d prepared (or had more imagination) but it was pleasant enough just to be there in the fresh snow.

While the light was still good I headed to one of the places I’ve been meaning to visit at daybreak for sometime and got the shot above. This is just as it was taken – no filters, no post processing, just good old fashioned sunlight.

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Old John, Bradgate Park

The weather has been a bit variable to say the least over the past few days – but then I’ve been too busy to take any photos anyway so it’s not bothered me that much. The sun was out for a while this afternoon so I took a late lunch and headed to Bradgate Park as the late afternoon light is really nice on the bracken.

Old John wasn’t my intended subject for today – as you can imagine this local landmark is much photographed – I had planned on walking straight past but the light was too nice to ignore so I took a couple of shots handheld and carried on my way. I managed one other shot before it started raining again :)

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