I am a retired geologist now living in my native England. Having grown up in County Durham I spent almost my entire working life as a geologist in Africa, in places such as Zambia, the DRC, South Africa and Guinea. When I returned with my wife to the UK in 2014 we settled in Belmont, on the southern edge of Sutton, Greater London, to where all three of our children had come from South Africa over a decade previously.
I try to get out for a walk most days and during the winter months tend to have an urban route that takes me to Sutton town centre. As the weather improves in early spring I start walking on Banstead Downs, which is less than a 5-minute walk away. As a schoolboy in Durham I used to say “Sutton, Surrey” and find that even though it is 60 years since Sutton became part of London that term is still widely in use today. To get to the Downs I cross the county boundary into Surrey, so “Sutton, Surrey” does still seem quite appropriate.
I suppose as a geologist who worked in field exploration for many years in a variety of different environments it is probably unsurprising that the natural world would be of so much interest to me. While in Africa my big passion was birdwatching and bird photography, as well as wildlife photography in general. Unfortunately, Banstead Downs does not have the ‘Big 5’ and 40-50 bird species in a couple of hours is out of the question, so I decided to reacquaint myself with UK wildflowers, trees, insects, fungi, indeed anything that piqued my interest.
I still regard myself as an ‘enthusiastic amateur’ photographer as the vast majority of my images are shot with all settings on ‘Auto’. I always have at least one camera with me, but usually two, one set up for wide angle shots and the other for macrophotography to get as close as possible to even the smallest of insects. I have even found tiny insects in the same image as the intended subject of that shot only at the image processing stage. I continue to be surprised at some of the things I see and get as much enjoyment from sitting in front of my PC researching what I have photographed as I do from shooting the images.
You are never too old to learn.
Neil Gray
