Lanternwood

The forest is darker than you think, and full of life. Lanternwood sends you out at night with a torch and a camera. Everything beyond your circle of light is black. A rustle in the brambles, a pair of eyes glinting in an old hollow, a soft splash by the reeds: the wood is watching you as much as you are watching it. Use the gentle red light to look around without scaring anyone. Creep the beam over slowly, frame your subject and let the lens find its focus. Then switch to bright light, and in the heartbeat while the animal freezes in surprise, take the picture. Too quick, too bright or too close, and it is gone. Owls, foxes, hedgehogs, badgers, hares, deer, bats, frogs and the rarest visitors of the night each have their own habits, and some come in surprising colours you may only meet once. Every photo is judged on how well you framed and timed it, and your best prints are pasted into a naturalist's album that slowly fills page by page. A nature magazine sends you commissions, and the points you earn buy better kit: a long lens for shy animals far away, a fast lens for wings in flight, a wider beam, more film, a tripod and boots that make no sound. With the right kit, new corners of the forest open up, from a misty marsh to a ruined mill on the hill.