Autumn in Guernsey is a fickle thing. The seasons change gradually and there is no sudden ‘fall’ of brown, red and yellow stretching as far as the eye can see. Our trees prefer to hang on to their leaves until they’re certain, but still there’s no group-decision - they will shed when they’re ready and there’s almost no telling which will choose October, November or December. We can’t blame them - if it weren’t for calendars, we might not be sure ourselves - Sea swimming is perfectly acceptable well into October and until Christmas we’re rarely sure whether just a t-shirt will suffice or to wrap ourselves in a thick winter coat. We can only be certain of Autumn when the winter storms arrive, indicating that it did indeed happen again this year.

Because of this gradual seasonal development, Autumn is a time to watch trees carefully. I find myself making mental notes of those that seem close to their colourful peak, others I have missed and still more that show no signs of changing colour at all. Early storms can prematurely strip some trees of their leaves whilst others cling to them tightly. As a photographer, I’m always hoping for some sudden, widespread, dramatic event that never materialises, but over two months I’ll often stumble upon a beautiful autumnal scene, only on a smaller scale.

The season - in fact the whole year - has been mild with very little badly-behaved weather, save for a freak snow-event way back in March. Sunshine has dominated the weather throughout and as it drops lower in the sky throughout Autumn, has provided some stunning warm afternoon light, complimenting my outdoor photography.

Fog has also added an interesting dynamic to my photographs. Early in October, an unexpected fog formed over a part of L’Ancresse common, unlike anything I’d seen before. I happened to be driving past late one evening and noticed a layer hanging about a metre above the ground. Abandoning the car to explore on foot, I was unable to see the ground but the air above was crystal-clear, as was the space below it. Over flat ground you could have probably laid a ruler flat against it both top and bottom. Thankfully I had a camera with me, but sadly no tripod, so had to shoot what I could handheld, with a long lens in the fading light. As quickly as it had formed, the fog dissipated and by dark, was completely gone.

During November, we were plagued for a couple of days by more regular fog - the kind of thick ugly fog that envelopes everything, stops aircraft landing and keeps boats in harbours. I took the opportunity to see if I could find some interesting compositions in graveyards, and then took a short walk through a small wooded area at the top of St Peter Port, unsure until then whether my childhood memory of it’s existence was real.

A trip to the New Forest made for a very pleasant short break, though perhaps a few weeks early for the full autumn display. Accompanied most of the time by the famous ponies and donkeys, this image of a couple of wild deer that wandered onto the path some way ahead of us was the stand-out shot of the trip.

Finally, I had been watching a tree I found the previous year, nestled in the woods of Fermain Valley. Unfortunately I have little knowledge of tree species but my guess is that this one is not naturally meant to be there, as all around it, the other species remain green. In fact throughout Autumn, its leaves stayed stubbornly green but by mid-November, they suddenly turned fiery yellows and reds, before quickly dropping to the ground. That tree you can see in the main image above.