I'm lucky; I live in the middle of the Suffolk countryside and yet I'm also not so lucky as it means for anything other than country photos I need to drive at least 5 miles to my nearest town.

Hence why I include Country photos as one of my 3 genres and I also think that it makes for some great photos too.

​

I can remember many many years ago I was a keen marathon runner; I lived in Surrey in town but always used to drive the 10 miles to Richmond Park on a Sunday morning - early on a Sunday morning - like I was there for 7am which in anything other than summer meant it was just getting light.
One autumn morning I'd run about a mile and it was now light enough to not have to continually look down to avoid tree roots and holes in the gravel footpath, when through the autumn mist I heard a familiar sound; a stag during the rutting season. Sent a shiver down my spine as it was obviously close. Closer than I'd imagined as a few steps later we were face to face just a couple of meters apart. I froze, breathing as quietly as I could. Slowly I walked on. The stag just glaring at me thankfully until I'd put enough distance between us for me to run again.

My thought was, "wouldn't than make a fantastic photo!"

For the next few weeks running went into second place to photography; I went at the same time for the next few Sundays hoping to have such an encounter again.   It almost happened but with the stag maybe 20 meters away and my 85mm lens I had just wasn't long enough really. I've since lost the photo and negative but maybe that's part of why I, and I'm sure millions of others, love photography; it's not always about the photo but about the chase, it's the memory of at least trying to get the photo. And sometimes yes! the actual photo!

​

Then there's more recently.

Walking along Felixstowe beach on a very bright and sunny December afternoon; my wife with her friend walking the dog. Me with my faithful old Leica M9 and an even older 50mm lens. A scene got my attention; a groin casting a beautiful shadow with waves gently washing ashore and a milky soft blue sky. I thought if I could do a long(ish) exposure it'd soften the waves even more and create a possibly decent photo. 
I braced the camera against the groin and proceeded with several shots at about half a second.

The resulting image won "Highly commended" at the next months Society of Photographers monthly competition.