Nature, Dressing.

I spent six years as a professional landscape photographer once. It was the best occupation I ever had. Can you imagine driving around the country to the most beautiful places and getting well paid to take pictures of them? There was another benefit, though. It taught me to notice the detail in landscape that I had previously missed. Unfortunately, my career was truncated by the recession of the early nineties, but the eye for landscape never left me.

Encouraged by a rare day of clement weather recently, I took a walk around the lanes near my house. The scenery around here is typical of rural middle England, and there are a lot of copses dotted around the gentle panorama of the middle Dove valley. Viewed as a mass of trees from a distance, they have a particular look at this time of year. They take on a soft, feathery appearance as the first buds appear and begin to mask the harshness of the naked winter branches. They get their first hint of colour, too – mostly light buff and dark red – and you know that Mother Nature is up and getting dressed.