The theme at last night’s meeting of the Ealing group of London Independent Photographers was ‘Light and dark’. We each showed a series of images with our own interpretation of that theme. For my contribution I decided to edit some of my travel photos in high contrast black and white. The theme that tied them together as a series was the use of an arch to frame the scene.
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It’s hard to say why a symmetrical image is so pleasing to the eye. It seems that our brains are naturally drawn to symmetry, finding it aesthetically pleasing and visually satisfying. Symmetry induces a sense of order, harmony, and perfection.
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According to Cicero, the greatest of Greek cities wasn’t in Greece itself but in Sicily. He described Ortigia, the original heart of modern-day Syracuse, as ‘the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of all’. Situated on a small island, the city was founded by the Greek settlers from Corinth in 743 B.C.
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Red is a primary colour and a rather schizophrenic one. It represents passion, warmth, and sexuality, but it also stands for danger, violence, and aggression. Red can’t be ignored, it demands to be noticed. From red hair to the red carpet this is a colour sure to turn heads.
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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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The Romans built the city of Netum on the slopes of Mount Alveria in south-east Sicily. Legend tells that Daedalus stayed in this city after his flight over the Ionian Sea, as did Hercules after his seventh task. Over the following centuries it flourished, until in 1693 disaster struck, in the form of an earthquake. Most of the buildings were razed to the ground and over half the population perished.
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While it is true that each of us can get something different from a picture, I think it is also the case with words. We often bring our own interpretation to them, do we not?
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These traditional balconies are found all over Malta. Their origins go back to the Arabic architectural feature of a muxrabija. This was a wooden frame which screened the window space completely. It allowed a person on the inside to observe all that was going on outside, whilst not being visible to anyone in the street below.
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Today London is a huge metropolis, but it wasn’t always so, of course. It started as a small Roman settlement on the north bank of the River Thames, Londinium. In 200 AD a wall was built, surrounding and protecting the city. Over the centuries it grew and grew, but that Roman town remained at its heart, the original City of London.
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As in so many other places around the world, Catholicism was introduced to the Philippines by Spanish missionaries and colonisers in the 16th century. It played a crucial role in shaping the country's culture, values, and social structures during the colonial period and beyond. But it wasn’t all one-way traffic.
