Alan Mackenzie Photography

Earlier this year, I booked a second autumn holiday at the Old Manor House Pig Barn in the pretty Saxon hamlet of West Dean , East Sussex. Former Eastbourne hotelier and amateur archaeologist Julian Martyr runs three holiday cottages here, called the Dovecote Garden . The cottage is probably the oldest building I've stayed in, easily trumping the Lower Farm Cottages in Blockley and Whitewells in Herefordshire by at least three hundred years! Aside from photographing the already familiar Abbots Wood and Friston Forest, I had Brede High Woods and Camber Sands earmarked on the map; the unsettled weather that makes coastal photography so interesting, never materialised, so unfortunately I didn't make it to Camber Sands on this occasion. The first four days of my holiday was accompanied by thick fog; I've wanted to capture autumn woodland shrouded in fog for many years. Thanks to the proximity of Friston Forest, the misty glades were just a five minute walk away. The wet...

It isn't long until starlings begin their migratory journey from the rapidly cooling European continent to the milder shores of the British Isles. This year, I will be equipped with the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III and a borrowed Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM. I cannot wait. I've been practising my bird photography on Brighton seafront recently; swift, agile gulls provide the challenge I need to bring my rusty bird tracking skills up to par. I am awaiting news on whether my starling picture story will make it into the newspapers. HotSpot Media interviewed me during the summer and constructed a story based on my answers; the copy features references to Alfred Hitchcock (if I could have a pound for every time people have mentioned The Birds to me, I could buy the Canon EOS-1DX). Although HotSpot Media have sent the story to all daily national newspapers, the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph are most likely to run it. Some of my best friends are Daily Mail readers; I will ...

I trust you are preparing yourselves to forgive me for the lack of posting. Late summer and early autumn is always a lean time for wildlife photographers. Most animals, except Fallow deer, have finished mating; the butterflies are mostly deceased; the countryside is preparing itself for the winter. I have used this quiet period to complete 98 pages of my upcoming book on wildlife and nature. There is still work to be done this autumn, before it is ready in time for Christmas. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the photograph I took at the weekend on Hove beach.

Two weeks ago, I met with sports photographer, Alex Lawrence , in a busy Hove café , to receive a very special piece of equipment : the Canon EF 500mm f/4 L IS USM lens. I first met Alex on Brighton beach in March; our last rendezvous was only our second and so it is a rare privilege to be offered custody of a £ 7500 lens for one month. Alex knows I have form for destroying L series lenses; the Canon EF 100-400mm and 28-70mm lenses have both, on my part, succumbed to accidental obliteration. Never again, is what I swore, the time before. I have to credit my other job in adult social care for developing me as a person; I often meet several new people in one day and I need to gain their trust very quickly in order to help them. I'm sure Alex saw this in me. My experience with the Canon EF 500mm lens brought forward the purchase of a replacement DSLR; I had been saving for the brand new Canon EOS 1DX, but, at £5299, the money would be better spent on a used DSLR and the rest p...

Every so often, a collection of unpublished photographs accumulates in my archives. This time around, most are from spring and cover familiar locations, such as Cuckmere Haven and the South Downs. I am delighted to include my first image of the summer, a female Roe deer, seen on the Sussex/Surrey border. Having concentrated my energies on landscape photography for six months, I am gradually refocusing on building a strong portfolio of wildlife photographs. There's a reason for this. Expect to see a new, coffee table book on Sussex wildlife by the end of the year. It is quite exciting to speculate on what I might find over the course of summer, if indeed, we are fortunate enough to have one.    

Max Furia, editor of the splendid Italian website, Total Photoshop recently interviewed me about my approach to landscape photography. If your Italian is up to scratch, please go ahead and read the interview .  I think we can forgive the editor for not having heard of curry. Half of Italy now thinks I go for a beer and a bowl of soup, when I finish for the day. For those of us, including myself, who failed at languages during school, I've included the full interview in English. ------ Landscape Photography Explained by Alan Mackenzie He is a young British photographer. I have always been impressed by the quality and compositional choices from the very first time I saw them. Alan makes it clear that it's tough and he is not afraid of hard work. I couldn't help but ask him for some advice and for some interesting stories about his experience of landscape photography. Here is what came of our chat. Welcome to Total-Photoshop, Alan. As usual we like to ask...

This evening was a calmer, more sedate affair than of late. Looking up at the moon put everything in perspective. In the scheme of things, taking the best ever photograph of the South Downs really isn't that important. I enjoyed myself for the first time in a fortnight, revisiting Stanmer Down, a favourite haunt of mine. Sadly, I forgot to bring my bottle opener, which meant the Black Sheep Ale had to await consumption until arrival at home, despite numerous attempts to force the cap off using my tripod head.

The National Trust had predicted a brief and limited display of bluebells this spring, owing to an extremely dry winter. My mother, a keen gardener, was among the first to dismiss this suggestion, followed by a number of Brighton-based photographers. It would seem that this year's bluebells are simply a trifle tardy in their arrival. Nate Wood is on the southern flank of a 360 hectare woodland near Polegate in East Sussex. I was fortunate enough to visit this location during a cool and unsettled Sunday evening, which meant that the indigenous crepuscular and nocturnal animals could begin feeding an hour early. Indeed, the absence of people led to a sighting of Roe deer in neighbouring Abbots Wood. I observed three of these beautiful, petite mammals running through the woods; their winter coats replaced by a lightweight reddish-brown coat of summer. Photographing bluebells is harder than you think. The best approach is to use a moderately long telephoto lens, shooting from a...

Danny Callcut of Sticky Rice once told me that I ought to photograph people more often. "Street portraiture in Brighton is easier said than done", I replied. The southern English are very private in comparison to our friends in the north. Down here, it sometimes takes a unifying event to bring people out of their shells. In a quintessentially English manner, the snowy weather of December 2010 made strangers more receptive to pleasant, informal conversation. I wish for snowy winters more often, if the joyous company of strangers like Frank and Magnus are anything to go by. More recently, when I met photographers Alex Lawrence and Finn Hopson, we had so much to talk about that portraiture was not even an afterthought. Perhaps, out of respect for my comrades, I unconsciously refrained from making another photographer a subject in his own right. Rather than observe them via the intermediary of a viewfinder and lens, I instinctively felt the need to relate with them directly thr...

April continues to be blustery and unsettled. The light and cloud formations were such that I imagined this was Scotland, rather than East Sussex. I felt quite giddy with excitement as the weather provided yet another superb opportunity to portray my home county in all its bucolic splendour. I presently cannot get enough of the outdoors; no wonder my mother says I have a weather-beaten look about me. I am so lucky to have a place like Balmer Down on my doorstep, something I never take for granted. The fields surrounding Ridge Road, Falmer are simply the finest in East Sussex. Lined with attractive hedgerows and accessed via lovely pointed gates, Roe deer can be seen grazing in early morning or late evening. Kestrels, Kites and Tawny Owls reward the patient observer, while bats can be seen gliding along the northern end of Ridge Road at dusk.