With a slew of new cameras and lenses bought over the Christmas period I won’t lie and say that I was a little disappointed when first randomly generated lens and camera combo of the New Year (2026) bought abought the venerable Sony A7R IV with the equally familiar Sony 50mm f1/4. The lens has already been used for this series, albeit with the APS-C sensor of the A6700, so at least with it attached to the full frame camera it would offer a different perspective.

The first week of the New Year had already seen a dump of snow over Grantham, which melted away fairly quickly but on my walk the temperatures were still barely above freezing and the sand based paths of Queen Elizabeth Park and Running Furrows were treacherously icy in places, which had me questioning my life choices as I slipped and slid around trying to preserve the camera and attached lens. For that reason and the simple fact that it was cold enough for my hands to be very painful, I kept the walk short.

To shake things up a little I opted to continue to shoot in black and white plus raw – something I had pretty much exclusively done through the Christmas period taking lots of photos on various family visits. I’ve always loved monochrome photography and the option to shoot black and white straight from the camera with the back up of being able to edit a colour raw version is something I have done periodically ever since I was able to do so back in 2009 or so with the A700 and then with the A77.

I won’t pretend to say it was the most interesting of walks and I wasn’t really that enamoured with any of the photos I took either. I enjoyed playing with the silhouettes of St Wulfram’s church and the extreme contrast of the Running Furrows path; the bare January trees looked especially windswept and frail in black and white – the colour versions I edited later nowhere near as atmospheric. And there was the random glove on the pavement floor which I was tempted to go for a early-mid 2000s selective colour vibe, but the glove was a dull blue rather than a vibrant red which always worked best.

So a rather understated start to the New Year – but at least I got out and kept the idea alive – hoping that next time I would get a combination that was a little more inspiring.