A visual feast, urban landscapes, changing views and Lucy's 'perfectly you'.
The visual is so vital to who I am.
Is that on a creative level, how I learn (visually), or am I just plain nosey?! Always wanting to see what’s happening around me. Perhaps it’s both of the above!
I have often said that sometimes I feel my eyes aren’t big enough to see all the wonder.
For me now, Exmoor is where I find my visual feast. Particularly on our hill farm, where we live work and play. Even more so now that a third Lockdown has confined us to this green paradise. When I worked in London, as a fashion designer, I was always using creativity to express what I was seeing. The visual reference was vastly different then. It was guided by the streets around me. People watching was my thing. What they were wearing, how they wore it, the colours, fabrics, the backdrop of the austere urban buildings. I would be hard pushed to see another new face in a week here now! If I did, they would definitely not be wearing this seasons High Fashion trends!
I found my old job fascinating. I was often in New York, Paris, Milan, Amsterdam, and any place where the cultural influences were affecting the trends of the day. Each city was so different. With the character of its people reflected in their clothing. It was my job to find our new ‘Bestseller’. Tracking new fabric influences, colours, and shapes, to sketch and have made into a physical garment for our stores.
I loved it. Passionately. That’s me. All in.
Then my life moved on. Through choices I made. I have no regrets. We are never a finished picture. We are always gathering fresh coats of paint as we go. There is always more that can be done, it is even possible to paint over the bits you don’t like and change the view. The original is still there, you just don’t have to look at it anymore! That is just what I did in my life too.
I changed the view. Personally, I am the same in many ways. Still passionate about what I do. Only, it’s my focus that’s changed. Geographically, I have changed the urban to a rural view. Where I once rushed through the crowded streets looking up to the tops of glass skyscrapers, now I walk the miles of heather covered empty moorland, and over our farm. With just my dogs for company.
A sketchbook and pencil (showing my age here!) were my tools in the city. Now it’s my iphone! I had always felt that I wanted to share what I saw, and the wonder it filled me with. It seemed such a waste for image after image to be consigned to the blackhole that’s is a laptops ‘Pictures’ folder. Beautiful memories ‘virtually’ lost for ever.
Then Instagram caught my attention, and @myexmoorstory sprung to life. Through these small ‘squares’ I have found a home for my edited highlights. Originally just for me, and now for others who share my love of an outdoor life.
I really enjoy the creative part of my ‘life outside’. Captured just as I find it. Much of my photography of wildlife and our countryside, here on Exmoor, is taken on walks with my dogs. That is my rest, and relaxation time. Where the big, wide world disappears from view, and all I can see is my small corner and my beautiful dogs. I love that time. But, of course, a huge part of my day is this farm. Where My Farmer and I work together caring for our animals, and this 360 acre hill farm, with it’s fields, banks and hedges, woodland, streams and river.
We are very proud of our farm, and everything we do here, but it is an extremely solitary life for much of the time. I had often thought that when we are busy with our farming calendar(those jobs that mark the progress of the year), how nice it would be to have a visual record of what we do. Not moments just caught on my phone!
When I found Lucy’s photographs on Instagram, I could see immediately that she would be the perfect person for the job. Classed as a ‘rural lifestyle photographer’, Lucy’s Instagram account @lucynewsonphotography, is full of gorgeous examples of her work, and her obvious emotional connection to the countryside. She says that she is “passionate about British farming and everything Countrylife.” A girl I could relate to!
When I originally spoke to Lucy and asked her if she would take some pictures of us, and our life, I hadn’t realised that we would be given so much more. As Lucy says on her website www.lucynewsonphotography.co.uk, her “mission is to capture memories that are perfectly you”.
The day that Lucy arrived on the farm was a fabulous, sunny September day. A miracle had come to pass!! We do get a lot of rain and fog on Exmoor! Lucy had advised us to choose a few days where she would be able to follow all of the family as we went about our day to day. For us this meant moving sheep with a quad bike and a sheepdog, bringing cattle in off the hilltop for pregnancy scanning, and a day of working with our ewes, making sure they were in tiptop shape ready to be put with the rams. A busy few days!
When Lucy arrived, she set to work immediately. I took her to see possible locations to capture the best of the action, and also where to take the group family pictures. Before the pandemic it was so rare to find all of us together, especially as George had been working abroad. His return, just before the first Lockdown, meant extra time spent as a family. The only positive part of this strange year. Lucy was able to take full advantage of that. We all had such fun together, and what fabulous pictures they were!
Over the two days, when we were shown some edited highlights at the kitchen table, we were amazed how Lucy didn’t miss a thing! She not only saw all that was important to us, but she captured truly special memories. That is a rare talent.
She showed us Rustle peeking through the gate wanting to join the work party. The way Dan slunk low as he approached his flock, with all eyes on him. My Farmer, on his quad bike, leading the herd he is so proud of, back over the farm. The boys laughing, standing on tiptoes trying to look the tallest in the group shots. My beautiful, wonderful spaniels. Not a thing was missed.
After returning to Essex, Lucy edited the pictures, and we had a meeting via Zoom. We were shown the photos via my laptop and were talked through what we saw. All the photos were ours to keep though. All safely on a memory stick, to download or have printed, to do whatever we wanted with them. I have already shared lots of them on my Instagram page. Such an easy process. The hard part was deciding which ones to print! So many beautiful images. We have chosen some for the wall and the rest are in a printed book, to look at and show whenever we want.
Lucy was such a pleasure to work with and so easy to share our days with. She made the experience very relaxed and comfortable. In fact, we all agreed, that we had really enjoyed showing Lucy our life here on Exmoor. It was an opportunity to see our lives through another person’s eyes. We were rather proud of what we saw! It isn’t often you have that sort of opportunity.
All in all, a very enjoyable and successful experience for us here.
So much so, that Lucy is returning to stay with us for lambing time! Lots of wonderful scenes to photograph then. I have promised to show her the ropes and I’m really looking forward to it.
So please, please don’t let a small thing like a pandemic get in the way!
We are keeping our fingers crossed Lucy xx
All photographs by Lucy Newson Photography.
