Slapdash Photography

(This is not an imaginative theme, and I am not verbose today. Have some equines.) While walking across the sand dunes, we passed a fair number of horses. I've never been an especially horsey kind of person (I tried when I was about eight because my best friend was a horse person, but it didn't stick), but then I walked past this horse.  This horse was standing close to the walking trail, going about its business while attractively situated on the dune. I took a couple of pictures and then it did this: There is something that pleases me immensely about photographing an animal that's looking at me. I don't know why (possibly because I've taken a fair few photos of animals and it's only happened three or four times), but it makes me feel like I am a Good Photographer who has Accomplished Something, more or less regardless of the quality of the actual photograph. I couldn't hang about long because the walking party was marching on, but I ma...

Last weekend I went to visit my boyfriend's family in north Wales, and I took my camera. I used to take my camera almost everywhere, but for the last few years it's come with me on holidays abroad and nowhere else. Patrick's family are big into walks, so I decided to try to use it as a way to re-inspire myself.  Abermenai Point has a couple of walking routes through the sand dunes and along the water. It wasn't an ideal photowalk as I was with a several other people who were already doing a less challenging walk than they probably would have been had I not been there (there are few things I hate more than strenuous walks at the pace of people who think it's fun and relaxing, and I have an ankle injury that makes hills extremely unfun for me), but I managed to get a few shots.  I got these photos as we waited for it to stop raining (because of course it started raining, and of course it was too warm to comfortably wear a waterproof jacket without crea...

We had as chilled a holiday in Madeira as we could manage, which meant very little hillwalking even though our apartment was on a hill (taxis are excellent things). But since Madeira is volcanic there's a lot of mountain to be seen, and in Funchal there's a cable car to take you 500 or so metres up to Monte and see things from a different perspective. Lower down the mountain at the beginning of the ride, the houses look very similar to each other. There's very little variation in colour and shape, though the placement of the buildings themselves isn't uniform, and from this perspective it looks as though it remains that way however high up and far away they go. But from further up, and tucked into the hidden valleys, it's a different story. There are fewer houses, but they're bright pink and light blue and perched right on the edge of a cliff and full of people hanging out their washing, completely unbothered by the hundred or so cars flying over the...

For my own personal sense of structure, I'm going to attempt to give each post a one word (or short phrase) summation. Having a consistent mood, theme or idea will be good for me, at least to start off with. When I first got into photography I started doing the weekly assignments in the Digital Photography School forums, and that was great except that everyone else was so far above me it made the whole thing feel a bit futile. So these are my own themes, born out of whatever happened when I was shooting. Sometimes it might be deep, or abstract, or thought-provoking. Today it is not. Today it is "Look, I saw a pretty colour." The São Tiago Fort in Funchal was built in the 17th century to protect Madeira from pirates, and these days it's a museum and art gallery. And a restaurant, because everything is a restaurant. When we visited it was fairly empty, and I was enthused to take photos in a way I haven't been for some time. Mostly it was the combination of ...