Dreaming of a White Winter: Snow Comes To The UK

My Favourite Wintry Scene

Christmas this year was remarkably balmy in the UK. I think it was the warmest December on record. Now we’re into January and the weather’s suddenly got cold. It snowed today — just a spattering, but there’s more wintry weather to come.

It seems like a good time to share my favourite winter photo. This is the town centre in Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, where I live. It was taken in 2017, a year when the whole country had a lot of snow, services were closed, and it was all over the news.

I went out in icy cold weather to document the scenes through photographs, and came back with a collection of snowy shots, which I uploaded onto Alamy’s stock photography website on their news feed.

The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, downloaded and published two of my photos for their weather round up. They didn’t pay. Jammy bastards. I only found out because someone in the photographer’s forum posted a link to my photos on the Daily Mail’s website a month later.

I asked the stock photography company to chase the newspaper for payment and had to wait four months, giving them ample opportunity to pay voluntarily, before Alamy pursued it. I eventually received a modest sum for my efforts.

It’s not a good way to earn a living when downloads are freely available to large publications who only pay when they get caught!

© Susie Kearley 2024. All Rights Reserved.

This is my response to the prompt, ‘your favourite wintry scene’. Want to take part? Here are the submission guidelines…