I’m sat in my seat on the plane headed home after an amazing week in France, something that we did last year and I feel is becoming an annual event. My last plane trip saw me finish off my book, The Resonant, and my brain wants me to continue working on book number two, but my heart wants this story to be told first. So whilst I am staring at the same white page and typing on the same keyboard, I promise to use very different words.

I’ve already used the word, event, which could be a bit misleading. This trip was much simpler. By design it was a holiday with a camera (or in my case several). But it does take some advance planning. On the 28th of December last year my friend Dave announced he had booked a chateau in Normandy for the end of April. Believe it or not, this is not an unusual message, we’ve travelled a fair bit together and he has a thing for castles. Besides, you need a big space when you are hosting many people.

It’s 4:30am and I’m laughing as I clumsily navigate my luggage past the street lamps along the narrow side road. I’m walking to Paddington to catch the train to Heathrow. My backpack has been all over the world with me, USA, Dubai, Australia, the Canaries, Jordan and much more, but this is the first time that I’ve taken a bag with a background stand and backdrop on a photographic adventure. Who does this? I say to myself with a chuckle as I climb on board the train like it’s perfectly normal. I’m headed to France for two weeks of photography with friends old and new and travelling to several new cities. I love to travel, but in many ways this is a little unusual for me, of late my idea of a photographic adventure is to head off into the unknown, a desert or dormant volcano to capture the beauty of the human form in an otherworldly location.

But on this occasion I will be staying and shooting in two rather grand looking chateaus. The black backdrop slung over my shoulder will be used to stage a studio like scene juxtaposed against the grandeur of a chateau, or at least that is the idea.