When I was young, my parents used to take me and my friends to a place called Burnham Beeches in Buckinghamshire. They’d bundle us into the car, drop us off, and say, “Have fun - be back before tea.” And that was that. We’d disappear into the distance, losing all sense of where we’d come from, with very little thought for where we were going. This wasn’t the obligatory Sunday afternoon stroll. This was somewhere to run wild and explore - a place that sparked the imagination.

I still have vivid memories of those days: disturbing ants’ nests and getting my ankles savaged, playing Land of the Giants, watching a sparrowhawk fizz through the pollards, and falling face-first into the Swilly Ponds. But memories soften over time. After college, I moved to London, where I have been ever since.

In 2020, when the pandemic hit, I decided to make a change. To move away from the commercial world of automotive photography and to start up as a specialist garden photographer. With time on my hands to rethink my direction, I found my mind returning to Burnham Beeches. Could this be the place to practise? A place to develop a more instinctive approach to garden photography, away from the constraints of a studio or structured shoot?

When I finally returned, it felt as though I’d never been away.

The first thing that struck me was just how wonderfully chaotic a woodland is. My previous work had been about creating perfection-carefully composed, highly controlled. But this was something else entirely. This was closer to what I now think of as real-world garden photography. At first, I was baffled. I kept catching myself thinking, Why can’t that be over there? A hangover, perhaps, from years of directing scenes as a commercial photographer.

But slowly, something shifted.

I realised that if I stopped trying to control the landscape, and instead tried to understand it, the woodland would begin to reveal itself and the photographs would follow. That shift in mindset has shaped the way I now approach everything from small garden photography to larger landscape projects and garden photo-shoots for designers, publications, and clients. Blending a professional skill set with something you’re genuinely curious about tends to lead somewhere interesting. I found myself combining my experience as a photographer with a growing interest in ecology, applying it across projects ranging from garden design portfolios to documenting European gardens.

These images are part of that journey. They’re not staged or overly composed - they’re observations. Moments drawn from an ancient woodland in Buckinghamshire that has quietly shaped me as a specialist garden photographer. Whether I’m working on a garden location shoot, capturing a city garden, or documenting a before and after garden transformation, that same approach carries through: observe first, understand second, and photograph last.

Burnham Beeches - If you’re ever passing… it’s far more than just a walk in the woods.

Burnham Beeches is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a National Nature Reserve. In 2005 the Beeches was designated as a Special Area of Conservation, for its beech forests on acid soils. The SAC citation acknowledges the mosses, lichens, insects and other invertebrates that depend on the ancient trees. The SSSI citation also mentions the heathland and valley mire systems considered integral to the character of the Beeches.