Looking back on the year is one of my favourite things to do during the quiet days between Christmas and New Year. My 2019 was an amazing year and I cannot but only be grateful for the wonderful people I met, the dream commissions I got and all the beautiful places I travelled to.
When I look back on the year, I usually do it by looking at all the photos I took. Well, not all of them but you see what I mean. I cannot (yet) share everything with you (especially of two big assignments, one in Somerset and one in Yorkshire and that took me a whole year to complete) but I’ve chosen a selection of images that I hope will give you a good representation of the work I do.

I love telling stories with my photography and no matter what I shoot, gardens or stories in the countryside, I always try to stay true to my style. And my heart.

JANUARY

I started the year with a trip up to my beloved Yorkshire. I photographed Debbie George’s beautiful house for a feature in Home&Antiques (I’ll share more about this in the August part) It was the perfect start to the year. I love Yorkshire and little did I know in January that I would go back there many more times in 2019.

January also saw the publication of these images in Country Living and that I took of Bea Andrews of Botanikafloral.

I often shoot for Soho House so the first shoot of the year for them was the soft opening of their brand new diner, Mollie’s Diner in Oxfordshire. This was just a few minutes before the diner was so busy I could hardly move. And the story came out beautifully.

FEBRUARY

February was dark and exciting. I shot a private dinner party in Mayfair. I always like a challenge and shooting in such dark conditions was definitely one.

The first travel abroad was to Belgium with Clare Foster. It started in Kalmthout and then off we went to Bruges to discover some beautiful gardens of Piet Blanckaert. You can see one of these gardens in the January issue of House & Garden. And look out for the February issue for images of witch hazel from Kalmthout.

February brought some flowers and I shot something different, some vegan beauty products for Country Living.

MARCH

Happy day when this garden designed by Arne Maynard and that I shot last year, was published in House&Garden in March. And le voilà

In March I was in the middle of photographing our local artists for Art Weeks and this took up a lot of my time but I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I’m doing it again, with the new artists joining in. So yes, this was most of March and continued into

APRIL

I photographed over 40 artists as part of our Art Weeks (Watlington, Oxfordshire), here’s just a modest selection of the photos from those shoots.

Spring came and with that some stunning bouquets by Honeysuckle and Hilda. I had a lot of shoots this year with Clare, most of them at Daylesford Farm (where I was teaching too but so typical, I never had the change to take any images of my classes)

And there was a chilled event with Rick Stein in Chiswick.

In April, my 1-2-1 teaching season opened too. I travelled up to Shropshire to teach Tammy at Wild Bunch Flowers and then to Cheshire for another one-to-one with Carol Siddorn from Carol’s Garden. I will not be able to mention everyone here I would like to say a very big thank you to everyone who came either to my home or booked one of my classes at Daylesford Farm. I absolutely love teaching and I really enjoy passing on the love of photography to anyone who’s inspired..

MAY

May was beautiful. I travelled back to Belgium to photograph those gardens of Piet Blanckaert that I mentioned back in February.

and then came a wonderful trip to the South of France (more on this later but I can tell you that an absolutely stunning garden was involved)

I spent quite a lot of time in London too. There was the Chelsea Flower show

and I also shot an event at the studio of the very inspirational couple, Annie Morris and Idris Kahn.

Another article I shot was published in the May issue of Country Living.

I spent a whole week in beautiful Derbyshire to shoot a story for Country Living. Again, this will come out in May so I’ll tell you more about it then.

JUNE

Summer arrived and with it, lots of parties. I do love recording parties in meadows like this 40th birthday party here in an Oxfordshire village.

and there was another party related BBQ learning event at Soho Farmouse

and a lovely lunch hosted by Emma Harris aka @aquietstyle.

June brought my first ever front cover of Gardens Illustrated from this feature of the magical walled garden at Middleton Lodge, designed by Tom Stuart-Smith.

I continued travelling down to Somerset and on my way home from those shoots, I always stopped discovering new gardens and country houses. Like Great Chalfield Manor. I can never tire of seeing new gardens and of the English countryside.

Then there was the wonderful Strawberry Hill Flower Festival where I had the change to photograph the stunning work of so many creative florists. Here’s just one work chosen for you of Botanical Tales and Atlas Flowers.

to be continued with the rest of the year!