The Apple Orchards

As Photography is not only my job, but also my passion and favourite hobby, I like to shoot subjects that interest me, things that catch my eye and get my creative juices flowing. This I believe helps me to do my day to day work better and can lead me down new and exciting routes. An example of this is, as an antidote to some of my more city based work, I started to look for subjects to photograph in the countryside. This led me to search out and wonder around Somerset’s Landscapes, to shoot it’s glorious Orchards, Cider makers and characters. This led to me not only shoot lots of stock imagery, but also help me to team up first with Matthew Clark who made Blackthorn and then with the successful family business Thatchers Cider, shooting much of their Stills and Video, as they have grown. It’s even led me to making my own Cider and planting my own Orchard. It’s now a landscape that I can’t get enough of…

Traditional Orchard’s in Winter, Mudgley, Somerset

Harvest Time is here…

Winter Orchards

With Lockdown I notice that my winter images are darker than ever.

after the harvest…

Somerset Cider Makers

Think of Somerset and you think of Cider. Think of those wonderful apple names, Kingston Black, Foxwhelp, Readstreak, Pig’s Stout, Yarlington Mill. From these apples comes it’s precious juice. High in sugar, once fermented with yeasts ingrained from old cider mills and wooden Barrels, this juice will eventually give us a rich, deep coloured pungent drink. The taste of Farmhouse Cider for which the county is justly famous. To walk into a cider house during pressing time or through well ordered, neat rowed orchard or on a haphazard hillside, dotted with wizened giants, is to enter a magical and ethereal world. Then you meet the cider makers themselves, sometimes as gnarled as their trees and as struffy as their old machinery in the yard, but normally as punchy as the cider they make. The are the givers of alchemy and cider philosophy and below are three of my favourites.

Thatchers Cider

The main bulk of Orchard Photography that I do is for Thatchers Cider. I’m proud to work for Thatchers Cider, they are a lovely warm family business and although the have grown massively over the past 10 years or so, they still have tradition at heart, they love and work hard for their product and have some beautiful Orchards to visit .

Frank Naish

Frank Naish, sadly passed away in 2013 aged 89 but for a long time was considered Somerset’s oldest cider maker and could been seen during Autumn making cider the traditional way with his brother Harold, until Harold himself passed away in 2005. Since then, assisted by Paul, this allowed Frank to continue to make farmhouse craft cider. Entering Frank’s Farm was a journey back in time with very little indulgence into modern times, both in his home and working life. Frank seemed quiet, thoughtful and gentle, but behind the veneer, I’m sure there was a steely Somerset character. To see Frank riding the tractor trailer, standing tall, rattling though the country lanes or patiently collecting and spiking runaway apples come, rain, wind or shine, was to see a man both absorbed in and in peaceful unison with his world. He seemed above content. He sold his cider straight from the barrels, barrels which where imported or shipwrecked from Spain and Portugal. The Cider is made from local Somerset stock, some only found in Glastonbury area and a few unrecorded varieties, grown from pip over the past 100 years. In his last years Frank was invited to be a judge at the Royal Bath and West show and was himself named as a true Artisan of the Cider Making Industry.

Dr Hugh Tripp East Pennard Cider

In Dr Hugh’s own words… “Harry Masters Jersey, Stoke Red, Sweet Coppin, Yarlington Mill, Dabinett and Dunkerton’s Late Sweet). When blended together these apples make an excellent cider. The cider apples are allowed to fall when they are naturally ripe and are then picked up and when we have about a ton of apples we start to mill them. The apple pulp is shovelled onto a layer of straw on the bed of the old cider-press and is covered with more straw. In this way alternate layers of straw and apple pulp are built up to form the ‘straw-cheese’, until no more fits on the press. The straw holds the fruit in place and allows the juice to filter through. A good deal of juice runs out whilst the straw is being built. A slab of wood, called the ‘follower’, is placed on top of the cheese, with stout baulks of timber to transmit the pressure as the press is wound down. As the juice runs out into a trough, it is pumped away into a fermentation vat, where it is simply left. The juice ferments naturally and literally “makes itself” into cider ‘

He uses straw to press cider not just for historical reasons or to be deliberately 'traditional' but because it's practical, as the straw aids the composting of the apple pomace (the skin, seeds and pulp of the fruit which remains after pressing), helping it to return quickly return to the earth. Speaking of which, if you ask nicely Dr Hugh will happily show you his coffin, made from the wood of a Sweet Coppin Apple Tree.

Roger Wilkins Cider

On the slopes of Mudgley, with a view across the Levels towards Glastonbury, down a weaving dead end track, you’ll find an unglamorous farm house and barn, where conversely you could find yourself rubbing shoulders with TV Personalities Rockstars and Chefs. They’ve all been here, Jamie Oliver, Jonny Rotten, Mick Jagger’s brother (who lives next door and quite often provides the musical entertainment during one of Rogers infamous Rock nights and Wassails ). But of course none of this would happen if it wasn’t for his celebrated farmhouse cider, made with a lifetime of experience, using the best local apples, picked and harvested at the optimum time and blended to produce a well rounded and distinctive cider. To enter his cider barn is to slide into a portal of Somerset inertial. Once you’ve accepted a taste of dry or sweet (it’s always a generous taste) your world slows down, time becomes irrelevant and you’ll want to take a seat and listen to stories including those of the famous wild black cat, that is reported to roam the local hills and countryside.

But for me, as much as i love to watch Roger and friends press the cider in a cheesy cider haze, it’s on the hillside, above the farm, where the beauty and magic lay. Terroir is a french word, used to describe the quality of the ecology and climate of the land, often used in world of upmarket wine making, but it’s also a word that local cider makers like to use to used to describe the geology in this part of Somerset, a triangle of productive land that stretches down to Glastonbury and across to Burrow Hill. This they say, gives much of Somerset’s cider it’s distinctively earthy taste.

I shot this footage around two years ago in the Katy Orchard at Thatchers cider. I guess it took me around an hour to shoot, which wasn't long. The bees were very busy that afternoon. As you may notice, the skies were cloudless and deep blue in the clear spring sunshine. Most of the footage was shoot at 240 FPS, enough to slow the bees down and give the film a lazy afternoon feel. The smell, as you can image was wonderful. To show off the blossom I had to lay on the ground. Lying there in the warm sunshine, with the sweet smell of blossom in the air, the buzzing of bees, and my camera glued to my eye, I don't think I've ever felt so content. I hope you enjoy the footage