I’m Simon Burchett, a photographer, writer and lifelong observer of the world around me. I’ve spent decades photographing Britain from the air, along the coast and from rather more ordinary places at ground level — usually with a camera nearby and a tendency to notice things other people walk straight past

A Whiff of Wilderness grew out of that curiosity. It’s a place for the photographs, journeys, places and stories I stumble across — from forgotten corners of the countryside and changing towns to ships, aircraft and the occasional piece of administrative nonsense that really does deserve closer inspection.

I’m just as happy looking down from a Cessna at a landscape changing beneath me as I am wandering through a market town, disappearing down an old lane or wondering why somebody thought a parking sign needed seventeen paragraphs of small print. The serious photography and the slightly less serious observations are all part of the same thing — looking properly at the world around us.

There’s no grand plan to all this. I go somewhere because it looks interesting, photograph it because I think it matters, and write about it because there’s usually a story hiding somewhere. Sometimes it’s beautiful, sometimes fascinating, and occasionally completely ridiculous. Either way, come along for the wander.