Nearly all the great buildings and monuments of Pyongyang were built to mark a significant event linked to the Great Leaders, usually a birthday; and Kim Il Sung was especially fortunate on his 70th to be honoured with three such gifts. This special event was marked with a grand library, a triumphal arch and a tower.
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I am always on the look out for interesting details to capture with my camera. I find it fascinating when the everyday can be made to look beautiful or remarkable when only a small part is picked out by my lens.
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The number one rule of perspective is that lines that are parallel to each other appear to converge to the same point in the distance. This point is known as the vanishing point.
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Sometimes (often?) photography is more about serendipity than anything else. A purposeful photo outing is enjoyable of course, and often reaps great rewards; but arguably we derive the most pleasure from finding an unexpected subject for our lens just by chance? I visited a London gallery that I hadn’t been to before. The exhibition was not especially inspiring, but I fell in love with the gallery's spiral staircase. Or perhaps more accurately, I fell in love with the photographic possibilities it presented.
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I’m coming late to Cee’s shapes challenge this week, Circles and Wheels, but I couldn’t resist joining in as I love to look for shapes in my photography. I’ve trawled through the archives of photos taken at home and abroad, and found what I hope is an interesting mix!
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Our arrival at Wonsan’s International Airport delivered another of those surreal ‘only in North Korea’ experiences; a glitzy but surreally empty new airport, built for international flights that never come!
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On the southern outskirts of the small fishing town of Tarrafel on Santiago, one of the Cape Verde Islands, is a haunting sight. Now a museum, this former concentration camp, also known as Campo da Morte Lenta, commemorates a darker time for the islands, under Portuguese rule.
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Maybe a desert isn’t the obvious place to look for bird reflections, or indeed reflections of any kind. Deserts are dry, no? And the Atacama Desert in Chile is especially so. In fact, it’s the driest non-polar desert in the world, and has had no significant rainfall for 400 years. And yet, the shallow waters of its barren salt flats offer picture-perfect reflections of feeding flamingos.
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'Nature does not turn out her work according to a single pattern; she prides herself upon her power of variation.' Sometimes the most effective photographs of natural subjects (plants, animals, even entire landscapes) can be achieved by getting so close that the subject’s outline disappears.
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London is a city of contrasts, where famous sights and almost palatial homes can rub shoulders with the worn and neglected. Just as its people are diverse and eclectic, so too are its buildings.
