This year I spent my 40th Birthday at Lacock Abbey in rural Wiltshire. Lacock was owned at one point by William Henry Fox Talbot and is essentially the birthplace of photography – well the English side. Talbot and Daguerre presented their inventions within weeks of one another and were obviously working on process at the same time. Talbot has always been the interesting of the two for me because 1) he openly shared all of the documentation of his photographic process and 2) he was a photographer as well.

So you can imagine what a treat it was for me to get to visit what is basically the Holy Land of photography. There’s a nice museum on the grounds, but what really makes it worth the trip is the Abbey itself. Originally owned by King Henry VIII, later became a convent, eventually made its way to Talbots family and is today owned by the National Trust.

This is the front gate and stunning entrance.