Bures And About

Many landscape photographers will admit as one of their failings a tendency to neglect their own “back yard”, to overlook the potential that lies in the location in which they live. It is not that familiarity breeds contempt, but rather that it pulls a veil down over the photogenic features of a landscape that it is so conveniently accessible and therefore so easily taken for granted.

The village of Bures (which actually consists of two villages: Bures Hamlet and Bures St Mary) is our “back yard”. This is a landscape of shallow valleys and gently rising hills; a landscape in which John Constable’s River Stour meanders past willow copses and marks the point at which two counties – Suffolk and Essex – meet. It is a landscape of medieval farmhouses and narrow lanes with passing places; one in which crops of potatoes and onions flourish in fields of sandy soil. And so often it is the landscape which, with cameras and tripods packed away in the boot of the car, we pass through on our way to somewhere else.

However, it requires only a little effort to pull away the veil of familiarity and so recognise the photographic opportunities that Bures and the surrounding countryside have to offer. It is a simple matter of seeing the area’s photogenic features in a fresh light, of isolating them from the landscape which we have become accustomed to seeing every day. The “Bures And About” gallery is our recognition of the charms that lie within walking distance of our front door, a celebration of the good fortune we have to be living in such a picturesque part of the world.