On a sunny spring morning, with the backlight shining through the Eucalypts onto the water, this little stretch of riverbank is wonderful. It’s a place to marvel and stroll with the light catching all the colours and reflections, while ironically, trucks and cars whizz by on the opposite bank, but hidden so well by the thick foliage of the trees and bushland. Except for the constant noise of the highway, you would be mistaken for thinking you were in some wilder rural setting or perhaps even a remote national park…but no, you are just outside the town of Bacchus Marsh!

Although officially retired from leading photo workshops all around the globe, I still love to share my passion with the craft. So, when my club, of which I am a life member, (Southern Suburbs Photographic Society) asked me to organise a photo trip, I naturally thought of a place where I had ran over 26 workshops before. All my lovely contacts are still on the Island, and so I was able to work out a wonderful four day adventure for those who signed up to join me down there in the roaring Forties!

Not long after our arrival down in Dorset, of South West England towards the latter part of March this year, the spring Blooms of the Bluebells and the Wild Garlic, began in Earnest. It was one of the best years that I had seen, and it proved to be the driest spring on record. But their heavy winter rains had soaked the ground and the warmer spring than usual popped those gorgeous and colourful blooms right out of the soil. I visited my usual haunts but ventured further afield, especially in the dawn light. Warbarrow Hill proved to be just so stunning that I returned back to shoot some more. I can never get enough of this season and it’s always a wonderful subject to shoot.

We re-visited this amazing garden after a long 20 year absence. Spring this year in England was truly amazing, and these gardens proved to be no exception. In the time we spent in England this year, I drove around the county of Dorset mostly, particularly on many early mornings, to take advantage of the light and the season.

Having just returned home to Oz, after spending 3 months in the UK for visiting family and shooting various locations in the south of England, (where my daughter and family are living), I will endeavour to post some highlights of my Spring-time shoots here. So, beginning with the wonderfully scenic New Forest of Southern Hampshire, with it’s woodlands, tall trees, wild ponies, meadows, rivers and streams. A truly remarkable landscape destination in any season.