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Gallery: an ode to beautiful Northumberland (shhh!)
Are there places you know and love which you hesitate to tell others about, because you are tempted to keep them to yourself? Places relatively unknown that you fear might become spoiled if discovered by too many? And yet, they are so lovely you can’t resist singing their praises!
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Gallery: textures of Nepal in monochrome
When I travel I always want not just to capture the big ‘sights’ but also the tiny details. I often photograph something that perhaps could be found anywhere: a leaf, a stone wall, a ripple on the water. But I found it here in THIS place and I want to capture it.
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Mount Paektu, the revolutionary mountain
Straddling the border between North Korea and China is a still-active volcano, Mount Paektu. Its last eruption was in 1903 and scientists consider that another one could be imminent, based on a trend of eruptions roughly 100 years apart. The crater lake, Lake Chon (‘Heaven Lake’) was formed in the 946 AD eruption.
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Gallery: some favourite English flowers
In the last few years, with the batterings the world has taken – Covid, war in Ukraine, prices spiralling – flowers have been among the constants that have kept many people’s spirits up. The pandemic in particular reminded many of us to value the little pleasures of life, and what gives more pleasure for its size than a flower?
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Gallery: three ways of seeing
Often I observe some with a phone or camera taking a single photo of a sight and moving on, in a hurry to reach the next. In the pre-digital days when every picture taken meant a hit to your wallet, that made some sense. Today it strikes me as strange, but then I am rarely happy with my first shot of anything!
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The best views of Paris?
It’s hard to ignore the Tour Montparnasse. This 210 metre high skyscraper dominates the skyline on the southern fringes of central Paris. Its monolithic appearance has often been criticised as incongruous or inappropriate for this proudly elegant city.
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Gallery: getting from A to B
How many different kinds of transportation can you think of? The obvious include bikes, cars, planes, trains, boats. Of course our own two feet are a means of transport. Then there are the animals pressed into service such as horses, camels and donkeys. All over the world people make different transport choices depending on local customs and resources.
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Gallery: photographing poetry in motion
There may be poetry in motion, but it’s not necessarily easy to capture that poetry in a still photograph. Despite that, we all try from time to time, and there are various techniques we can use.
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Gallery: travel photography is my ‘groove’
For those of us who grew up in the sixties, groovy was the feeling we all aspired to. Groovy was exciting, fun, cool (another sixties word!) Too young to really be part of hippy culture, it nevertheless influenced my tastes in fashion and music. Getting ‘in the groove’ was where I wanted to be, even if as a schoolgirl I was probably very far from being so!
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Lens Artists Challenge: picking favourites
How good are you being self-critical when it comes to your photography? Can you easily pick out the best of your shots and are you comfortable rejecting those that have been less successful? I confess I’m pretty rubbish at it.
