Portraits of Becky Knight

The photos from this shoot stir up a huge amount of emotion in me. Let me explain why.

We photographed cellist Rebecca Knight in the beech woods of Beaconsfield (Hogback Wood, to be precise) in November 2024, and it was special to me for several reasons.

I grew up in our family home, right on the doorstep of these woods. In my early teens I zoomed up and down them on a bike with my older brothers. In my later teens I walked through them to our local pub, The Royal Standard, to meet friends and do things I shouldn't have (cigarettes? Underage drinking? During my A Levels? Absolutely not...).

Back then The Royal Standard was no tourist destination, just a normal, if picturesque, pub. I remember Sunday nights there with a few friends: the place almost empty, candles lit, and at exactly 10.30pm they would send their smelly cat round to meow loudly at us until we left. Then the grumpy owner would come round and make closing time known in a slightly more forceful way.

The years before this shoot had been particularly difficult for me. They came to an end when my father died, and Mum decided to sell the family home and move closer to us in London. I hadn't lived in Beaconsfield for a couple of decades, but I still felt a melancholy about the place. As a long time city person, I had come to love the calm and silence of Mum and Dad's home in those final years. The owls at night.

There was something else, too. I had never taken photos in these woods. It may sound strange, but photography for me has always been work. An artistic pursuit, of course, but work. The camera never comes out for fun, hobbies or friends. Never. Yet I had always wanted to capture the breathtaking colours of autumn here, and that is hard to do well. Landscapes don't work in woodland, because there's no focal point.

I'd also seen other people's photos of the Beaconsfield woods online. There's one I remember being slightly jealous I hadn't taken, and I wanted to capture the essence of the place even more intensely. (Yes, I can be a little competitive, but only with myself!)

So you can see why I was so excited when Becky called. We had photographed her with the Lawson Trio a few times, but this time it was just her, for her new podcast, Inner Ear, which connects natural and musical sounds. Her brief was something less formal than a headshot: Becky listening to a large conch shell, in a wood with autumn leaves all around, playing with focus, as much about atmosphere as a recognisable face. I knew this was the moment to finally shoot in Hogback Wood.

Becky is such a calm, kind and gentle person, and a joy to work with. It's a real pleasure to work with people who value a little creative improvisation during a shoot. Improvising is always a little risky, but it almost always brings exceptional results. At times like this, when I can let go and feel the shoot, I get the most beautiful shots: the kind I crave to take for myself, rather than just fulfilling the brief, which is so often what editorial and especially corporate photography must be about.

The woods I grew up in, a family home we were about to say goodbye to, a place I had never let myself photograph, and a sitter happy to improvise with me. Those are the reasons this shoot means so much to me.