The Britographer

There's a lay-by on the A34 in Oxfordshire that I've pulled into three times now. Not because of anything planned — just because there's a hedgerow there that looks like it might be worth a closer look. It usually is.

The Britographer is a nature photography journal from somewhere around the middle of England. I'm based in Birmingham, and I photograph Britain's natural world with a Canon camera and, more often than I'd care to admit, an iPhone. What gets me out of the car isn't a schedule or a checklist. It's usually just the light.

What this is

Britain has this quality of revealing itself to anyone paying attention. You don't need to travel to a national park or book anything in advance. You just need to slow down a bit and look. A robin in a January garden. Daffodils on a verge in late March. The dog rose scrambling through a hedgerow in June. It's all happening, constantly, just outside.

This site is a record of what I find — and an argument, if you need one, for slowing down. Every piece of writing is original. Every photograph was taken by me. I've stood in all these places, waited for the light, missed some shots, and got lucky on others. That's the whole of it.

The photography

I've been photographing Britain's wildlife and landscape for about ten years. Canon DSLR for most of it, with a 100–400mm zoom for birds and wildlife, and a 50mm or 100mm macro for flowers and close-up work. The iPhone comes out when the opportunity arrives before the camera bag does, which is more often than I expected.

Everything you see here was shot in Britain — mostly the Midlands, Cotswolds, and Warwickshire, but with occasional excursions further afield when something interesting turns up. No studio. What you see is what was there.

The writing

I write the way I'd talk about these things to someone sitting in a car with me, driving past a field. Not academic, not encyclopaedic — just the bits that seem worth saying. A bit of natural history, a bit of personal observation, the occasional detour into folklore or etymology when it earns its place. The aim is that someone who doesn't normally care about wildflowers might finish a piece about daffodils thinking they're quite something after all.

If you'd like to get in touch — about the photography, a print, or just to say you spotted something worth stopping for — the contact page is the place.