I love to seek out a local market when I travel; you discover so much about a place there. What people like to eat, how they dress, how they interact with each other (and you!) And markets are wonderful for photography. Whether like me you enjoy candid street photography or prefer to ask your subjects to pose, you will almost certainly get some great people images there. And the goods on sale also offer many photo opps.
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All photographers recognise that juxtaposing opposites in an image, or in a pair of images, creates an interesting tension for the viewer. Life is made up of opposites: big and small, old and young, light and dark, and yes, full and empty.
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Looking back at favourite photos can have a positive effect. They remind you of good times in the past and offer the promise of more good times in the future. Even when the memories they hold are sometimes painful, they are often also precious. But any keen photographer will also have favourites based not on the subject but on the photo itself.
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Long or short, every year ends with December, which for many of us means the build-up to the Christmas celebrations. And for those who like me live in the Northern Hemisphere, it also means short days, long dark nights and cold weather.
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Even if you think you know the 'Twelve days of Christmas' song, I bet like me you forget some of the later gifts. Are there twelve drummers drumming, or eleven? Should there be ten pipers piping, or is that lords a-leaping? And so on.
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I may be biased but I do think London does Christmas rather well. From the lights in the West End to light trails in some of our most beautiful parks and gardens, from shop window displays to those in people’s homes … from late November the whole city starts to take on a festive air.
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Have you ever noticed quite how varied are the barks of different tree species? At least as much so as their leaves and fruits, yet we seem to take much less notice of them.
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I am less than keen on November. The weather is rarely pleasant, though we did get a couple of crisp sunny days. I have to admit though that we still had plenty of autumn leaves on many of the trees though most are now bare. And there were even quite a lot of flowers, at least until the first frost bit.
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If you could choose a superpower, what would you opt for? Many of us, I think, would choose the ability to fly. Haven’t you sometimes watched a bird ride the thermals and wish that you could do the same? Or looked down at the earth from a plane and wish to be able to enjoy such views all the time?
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There is nothing ordinary about a leaf. There is so much variety in their shapes and textures, and in their colours of course, especially (but not only) in autumn. They are endlessly satisfying to photograph because of those textures and shapes just as much as for their colours.
