I don’t own a cat and never have; not because I don’t like them but because I like them too much to subject one to the trials of our frequent absences from home. So instead I enjoy meeting cats when out walking in my neighbourhood, or anywhere else come to that! And I don’t believe I can walk past a cat without stopping to say hello and take a photo.
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The Arctic is a magical place, wild, bleak, hauntingly beautiful. It is also, surprisingly perhaps, full of colour. However there are plenty of scenes that lend themselves to black and white photography too.
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One of the first things I was told when I first started to take photos as a ten year old was, always have the sun behind you when you shoot. Rubbish! That will of course result in a scene that is evenly lit and easy to capture. But it may also result in a scene that lacks interest.
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There are many ways to learn. We can watch someone else and copy (or try to copy) what they do. We can read instructions and guidelines. We can listen while somebody tells us how to do something. Or we can get stuck in, have a go, and learn from our experiments and efforts.
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A childhood favourite is the alphabet book. For the English speakers amongst us, the last few letters of the alphabet always presented the biggest challenges for those creating these books. X was always ‘for Xylophone’, Y ‘for Yacht’ or occasionally ‘for Yak’, and Z usually ‘for Zebra’. But most letters offer a wide range of options, among them H.
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While I try to avoid too many picture postcard souvenir shots when I travel, it’s inevitable that I will take some. I feel the need to record what I see initially, before diving deeper into the sights, looking for details or angles that are less obvious.
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When was the last time you used some form of transport? Car, bike, bus, train, plane … Most of us can’t get by without at least one of these. And wherever you go in the world, while the choice of transport might vary, people are on the move.
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What is better than seeing a beautiful landscape captured in a photograph? Often, seeing the same landscape twice. A still lake, or if we’re lucky a still river, will allow us to double up the scene and often double the beauty. But we aren’t restricted to water when we look for reflective surfaces to enhance our images or give them a different twist.
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One of the joys of Italy for me is the warmth in the colours of the buildings. When I think of Italy I think of ochres, terracottas and umbers. So it may seem strange to photograph Italian scenes in black and white.
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Not all pink is anaemic, it can often be ‘rich and glowing’. I’m not a fan of washed-out pastels in general, but pink doesn’t have to be washed out. Hot pinks pop, salmon pinks glow, even delicate pinks shimmer.
