There’s something quite special about your first summer somewhere new.
We moved to our little corner of Somerset at the end of last year, so this summer has been the first time I’ve properly watched the landscape around our home change. Fields that were bare through winter suddenly became full and green, the evenings stretched out, everything seemed louder with birds and insects, and for the first time I started to really understand what living here was going to feel like.
And somewhere amongst all of that came my first proper summer shoot in Pylle – literally in the fields behind my house.
It also happened to fall on the first ridiculously hot day of the summer heatwave, and on the day Glastonbury Festival would usually have been beginning just down the road. This year was a fallow year, so for my first summer living here there was no festival unfolding nearby – just long grass, blue skies, summer heat and us out in the fields making photographs.
Because apparently if I’m going to do something for the first time, I may as well pick the hottest day possible. 😂
Right on my doorstep
One of the things I’m learning to love about living rurally is that you don’t always need to go looking for somewhere impressive.
Sometimes it’s already there.
A field. Long grass. Evening light. A country lane you’ve walked past countless times.
There was something really lovely about being able to pick up my cameras, walk out from home and create photographs somewhere that has already become part of my everyday life.
No grand venue. No elaborate setup.
Just Somerset countryside, summer light and two people being themselves.
And actually, that’s increasingly what I want my work to be about.
Beauty in ordinary places
For years it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking photographs need spectacular locations to feel special.
The older I get — and the longer I photograph people — the less I believe that.
Of course I love incredible architecture, beautiful wedding venues and travelling somewhere completely new. But I’m just as interested in what happens somewhere seemingly ordinary.
The way somebody looks at the person they love.
Hands brushing together as they walk.
Wind catching hair.
A laugh that happens without anyone asking for it.
Those are usually the photographs I end up loving most.
A place doesn’t need to shout to be beautiful.
Sometimes you just need to notice it.
A very Somerset summer
This summer has felt like the beginning of a different pace for me.
There have been shoots, weddings, long evenings, animals causing chaos at home, far too much time watching what the chickens are doing, and a lot of moments where I’ve stopped and thought, bloody hell, I actually live here now.
Pylle isn’t somewhere most people would immediately think of when planning a couple shoot, and maybe that’s exactly why I love photographing here.
There’s no pressure for it to be anything other than what it is.
Quiet, rural and beautifully understated.
And on that hot summer evening, with the fields behind my house glowing in the light, it felt like exactly the right place to make photographs.
More of this
I think that’s what My Journal is going to become.
Not just wedding advice or perfectly packaged photography posts.
More of the things I notice.
The places I photograph.
The people I meet.
Somerset life, weddings, elopements, ordinary days, beautiful light and probably the occasional bit of chaos in between.
Because increasingly, I think the photographs that matter most aren’t always made in the places everyone already knows.
Sometimes they’re made in the field behind your house.
And sometimes that’s more than enough.
Samantha x