England & Scotland 2025
It’s been far too long since I’ve seriously photographed in the UK, even though I travel here most years. My trips back to the English countryside where I grew up have been focused on spending time with family and friends, not photography. Often, I travel here in summer without a camera. This year, however, I was coming to guide a 13-day photography tour to the Scottish Highlands and Islands, timed for Autumn; one of my favourite seasons to work in. So I was excited about spending time in Scotland and then photographing in the South Downs National Park in Sussex afterwards. Spending time back in landscapes that helped shape my love and approach to photography and my relationship with the trees in them.
Unfortunately, the trip didn’t allow for nearly enough time for my own photography as planned. Between teaching, weather, and then becoming unwell, I only managed a few days wandering around the landscape in the right state of mind to try and create some meaningful work. I’m writing this as I fly back to New Zealand, back to the approaching summer there. Luckily, I did still find a few moments in nature during this trip that I am excited to print once I get home, and want to share with you here.
Dancing Birch
Dancing Birch, South Downs, England, 2025
The moment I discovered these silver birch trees, I was instantly drawn to work with them; not as individuals, but the way they interacted with each other as a group—a natural art installation at its finest. They challenged my perception of the space between each one; just as David Nash’s 49 birch trees at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park had when I visited them a few weeks before. I was fascinated by how they sat in relationship to this landscape and each other—each interaction changed by a small step left or right. I experienced a deep engagement in nature when working to understand the interplay of these trees with one another—tying to solve this visual puzzle that expresses my relationship with this landscape by the relationship between each of them. I was lucky to return to them again on a misty morning the day after I discovered them; trying to compose each to create the perfect symphony of nature.
One Autumn Oak
One Autumn Oak, Glen Gary, Scotland, 2025
So often when I’m photographing trees, it is interactions between form and structure that engage me to find a subject from the space between. This rare case, it was the colours. Not just a single vivid splash, this interwoven tapestry offering a perfect canvas to this young oak tree’s graceful form. How could such colours sit together within one moment? Their relationship imperfectly balanced, contrasting each other. In much of my work, I don’t seek bold colour; preferring the soft pastel or even grey skies to a vivid sunset, waiting for late autumn leaves over peak fall colour. In this way this photograph felt quite different, capturing this moment of transition in both the oak, and beech leaves behind, sitting under a light Scottish rain of moss.
Time and Tide
Time and tide, Isle of Harris, Scotland, 2025
I first photographed Scotland’s beautiful Hebrides Islands beaches in 2007. Nearly 20 years later, I have not been working on the coastline much lately; I was unsure how I would reengage with the coast here—I no longer feel the chase from capturing sunset colours that I once did. From the moment I stepped onto these wild beaches, I felt drawn to the history that has sculpted them as much as time and tide. For me, standing here feels like you have stepped back in time in the same way as walking down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile—where both landscape and history become alive in a moment of another time; feeling unchanged—while we simply try to negotiate our own path laid out in the sand before us. It was the transit moments I enjoyed on these wild beaches, the small brake between an approaching squill, sound muffled by the wind engaging you in the landscape and making you feel alive; offering a moment of solitude.
Autumn Photography Tours
Anybody looking to photograph Autumn in New Zealand, Japan or Scotland with me, please take a look at the below 2026/2027 photography tours
15th - 19th April 2026 Autumn Photography Masterclass New Zealand - 5 days
19th Nov - 1st Dec 2026 Japan Autumn Photography Tour, Japan - 13 days
18th - 29th October 2027 - Scotland Islands and Highlands Tour, Scotland - 12 Days
