The plan was for a location shoot at Bretton, set against the Henry Moore bronzes, but with an unseasonably warm and sunny day filling the park with visitors and with harsh sunlight there was little chance of getting anything worthwhile.

Plan B was to work in a nearby orchard for the first part of the shoot and then getting onto Oxley Bank for the sunset light. The orchard offered the additional bonus of allowing Kat to take her fee in apples and pears.

We struggled with the strong light in the orchard, and no assistant to hold a diffuser, but Kat was as patient and flexible as ever as we worked our way through the orchard sets.

I was particularly pleased with the results I got using a 500mm lens for the first time for portrait work. Having to shout direction to a model 20m away was one more complication, but Kat is experienced enough to work with minimal direction.

The only hiccup was the pair of heads that appeared over a high fence. The male one paused just long enough to take in the nearly nude Kat, then challenged us for being in the orchard. I have to admit he showed admirable discretion in keeping his eyes firmly fixed on me while I satisfied him we were there with the owner’s permission, but perhaps that was more to do with his wife stood beside him than his gentlemanly manners.

Driving over to Oxley bank we arrived just as the sun was losing it’s force and found it deserted, so we were able to start straight in with a long shot of Kat walking along the ridge-top path in the evening sun.

Unfortunately, the cloudless sky meant there would be no spectacular sunset to frame Kat as I had hoped, but we did get some sunset pix.

We’d just finished and were crouching in the growing gloom while Kat looked through the shots on the camera when our one and only dog walker passed through. I’ve no idea what he thought of the two people crouching just beside the path, but given that he didn’t look back once after her passed, I’m pretty sure that he hadn’t realised that the good looking one was wearing nothing but an open shirt