When I was at school I was given a great opportunity to study abroad in England. I stayed at Harlaxton Manor, near Grantham in Lincolnshire. Every year they welcome over 100 American students to their halls. My trip was care of the Honors program at Hannibal-LaGrange University. I’d recommend living in a foreign country to anyone of any age, but in college it makes a difference in so many ways. For one thing, student hostels are a lot cheaper than hotels. 🙂

Parents sending their students on trips like mine often ask me what I’d recommend for the trip and I always say, ‘take a really nice camera.’ If traveling to England, in particular, get a camera that’s good in low-light conditions. I also mention things like a student train pass and a English Heritage card, but what I missed most was a way to capture it all.

If you’re going to travel halfway round the world and take the time to learn and see amazing things, you’ll want to take pictures to show people and remember what it was like. Years later I only have a few rolls from all my months there, because my cheap point n’ shoot died mid-way through my time. I ended up using cheap one-time-use cameras and hoping for sunshine.

Luckily, my picture story didn’t end sadly. When I returned on my honeymoon years later, we made a trip back to my old college stomping grounds. Armed with a practical DSLR I was finally able to take some of the pictures I wanted. For this article, I focused on the grounds outside the buildings. Over the next few weeks I hope to share several images from this and other favorites in England.

As long as I’m painting memories with a fresh stroke, it seemed like the images should reflect that. All of these images are processed using Topaz Impression, along with Photoshop and Lightroom. The full gallery and purchase options will be here: https://melwolverson.smugmug.com/Travel/England/England/