Of all the thousands of photographs, amateur and professional, recording the splendour of Castle Howard, perhaps history will judge the definitive images to have been taken on the perfect autumn morning of October 19, 2007.

They are family album shots in the sense that the camera was held by the Honorable Nicholas Howard, but when the results emerged it was obvious that they merited a wider audience.

The resulting exhibition reveals aspects of the stately home which only nature allows, and fleetingly at that. As Nicholas puts it, from a personal viewpoint the pictures he took were almost 50 years in their development, and 99 minutes in the making. Between 7.26 and 9.05 that morning, when the elements combined to provide scenes of astounding atmosphere, he took about 200 images in the grounds before conditions changed, the magic evaporated, and his lens became superfluous.

Of those, only 13 were chosen for the show he's entitled To Die For, in part because one of the photographs is of the mausoleum where one day he'll be laid to rest with his ancestors.

Not many individuals know in advance the precise location where their remains will lie, but that is one of the bonuses, or burdens, of being a Howard.

For that they have to thank the genius of Nicholas Hawksmoor, who designed the mausoleum, on which work began in 1731. As the other Nicholas was photographing it 276 years later, he burst into laughter.

"It was the thought that on that beautiful morning, truly one to die for, I was focussing on the place where I'll be buried. I've never found it spooky. On the contrary, it's warm and welcoming, and a lovely place in which to reflect. If a grave is little more than a rubbish bin for mortal remains, then it's the best rubbish bin I know. It will be a privilege to lie there."

He was seven when he acquired his first camera, and holiday snaps made way for more ambitious ideas when he was allowed to use his father's German-made Contax. Nick badgered for a "proper" camera of his own, and eventually one came from Russia, a 35mm Zenit SLR.

By his early teens, he'd established a darkroom in the great house created by Sir John Vanbrugh, and had a particular passion for taking snow scenes. White, in all its forms and applications – from sculpture to everyday objects – has been a constant theme of his photography and subsequent career in design.

Yet it was the brief annual impact of scarlet on his boyhood home which
drew him back there from London nearly a year ago.

He'd previously photographed the tree which sprouts from the lake at Castle Howard, but not to his satisfaction. It's a Swamp Cypress, Glyptostrobus Pensilis, and for just a few days its autumnal foliage blazes. If the weather was more than kind, Nick felt he could produce a set of images which did justice to his intimate knowledge of the estate, and in a way give something back to it.

"It has been a major part of my life for 56 years. If I couldn't translate that into intimate photography, who could? The aim was to create a series of images in a particular style which no-one here had captured before; to show the exterior of the house, and the grounds, literally in a different light, but to avoid the end result looking like the top of a chocolate box. I think I managed it and achieved something genuinely different, which wasn't easy because Castle Howard has been shot to death."

Nick knew from experience that around mid-October was the ideal time for his project, and preparations were thorough. He monitored weather forecasts on a daily basis. When a settled period was in the offing he contacted his brother Simon – his co-director in the private company which owns and administers Castle Howard – and said: "I'm on my way". At dawn on October 19 everything came together. The air was sharp and still, the sky crystal-clear, and there was a struggle between the sunrise and the mist enveloping the top of the lake and its surrounds – one trying to burn off the other, which in turn was equally determined to re-form. Initially, Nick had planned to use a tripod, but nature was
so fast-moving he abandoned it and from the outset relied on hand-held shots. "An artist will tell you that there are two golden hours in the day, early morning and evening. My favourite time is the morning, and I struck gold that day.

There it all was for me. Mist and shafts of sunlight created amazing scenes as the trees, hills, water, buildings and moisture reacted to them, and competed with each other. The clarity of light was such that reflections on the lake are almost sharper than a mirror's. You could turn the image upside down and not know which was real, and which the reflection. It was unbelievably beautiful.

"I was amazed by what the camera was telling me."

Some of the results bring to mind Impressionist paintings. Put a frame around one scene in particular and it could almost be a landscape by Turner.

He timed each of his shots to the minute so he would have a record of how the light was evolving and influencing his surroundings. By 9.05 the spell was broken, and just an ordinary lovely day emerged.

"You know the moment when natural perfection is over, but for 99 minutes I was utterly absorbed.

"Terrified, too, that what I was seeing with the eye would somehow elude the lens. For all its cleverness, a digital camera cannot show you exactly what you've taken. That only happens back at the studio when you start printing the image onto paper."

He needn't have worried. The exhibition photographs, each measuring about a metre by 1.5m, are even more extraordinary in their detail than he imagined at the time. They also have an obvious commercial value – maybe translating into posters, postcards and calendars in the Castle Howard shop. That, though, is in the future. He's not precious about putting a price on his work, but for now he wants the public
to enjoy the photographs without any financial distraction being attached to them.

"Without wishing to be pretentious, I feel there was something that was meant to be about the perfection of that morning. It's as if my family home had been waiting all my life for me to capture it that way.

"Two important things to remember though. I was in the right place at the right time, and very, very lucky. Also, apart from nature, there is a lot of deliberate beauty at Castle Howard.

"As a photographer, it's easy to feel like you've cheated because it was fantastic architects who did all the work."



Nick Howard's images were taken on a Nikon D3 camera, using 28mm-70mm and 80mm-200mm zoom lenses. The To Die For exhibition runs until November 2, and entry is included in admission to Castle Howard. For more information, visit www.castlehoward.co.uk