During my recent visit to Hinton Ampner, I met Nick digging over a border in the walled garden. Seeing my camera, he commented that there was not much of interest to photograph at this time of year so I showed him the macro shots I'd taken, which seemed to surprise him.
He suggested I look at the 'plant of the week', miscanthus, which I did and realised we have this plant in our back garden. Next I asked Nick if I could take his photo and explained my portrait project.
Again, he seemed a bit surprised but agreed. He works as a volunteer in the garden every week and has been retired from his job as a physicist for some years.
He is also called upon to transport large bunches of flowers and foliage for his wife in the Christmas season as she, too, works as a volunteer at Hinton Ampner creating the flower arrangements in the house.
I had some difficulty with the background of this portrait. Nick is very tall and the first two shots I took showed 'the parapet' of the wall of the walled garden across the top of the shot. So we tried one with Nick standing in the entrance to the garden. He cleverly and kindly did a sort of 'bend ze kneeze' stance whilst keeping still, and still smiling.
fav