I’ve mentioned before (probably several times) that I learn’t my photography by spending many hours exploring and shooting out and about on the Somerset Levels here near my home in the South West of England.

Now you’d think after spending so much time exploring one area I’d have had exhausted any kind of inspiration the area had to offer but this could not be further from the truth.

Today I spent a beautiful spring afternoon walking with my family on Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve on the heart of the Somerset Wetlands near Glastonbury.

Exploring an area I had not seen or at least remember seeing for many years it once again made me remember why I fell in love with photography as a teenager and why I still love my home here in Somerset.

A few times during those early years I wondered if I should head to London to live and assist which was and still is the route many others take to try and further their photography learning and careers.

I didn’t take this route preferring to assist (albeit for a very brief time) closer to home and base my business here but have an agent to represent my work in London.

I now realise this was probably the right choice to make.My main inspiration in those early years as a photographer came from the landscape that surrounded me and had I decided to make the move to London I suspect I’d had fallen by the wayside without that inspiration to keep me motivated to shoot and continue my interest in photography as a career.

Photography can be a tough business with long periods of little shooting but plenty of work behind a desk marketing or retouching.

Getting out behind the camera and back capturing the things that first inspired us to pick it up in the first place can charge us up creatively and give us a fresh boost of enthusiasm which we all are in need of every now and again.

The images here where shot for pure fun on my iPhone but also serve as a reference to the places I’m now planning to return to shoot sometime in the next week or so.