Room With a...View?

Sometimes there's a kind of unrealised beauty in the mundane. Beauty may be a bit strong. Fascination may be a better word. And decay and deprivation and dirt can be fascinating –and gross at the same time. Stopping over in Chicago for one night with little money I found a cheap hotel; the room was ..quaiI don't think the window-cleaner had been there since there either. The rest of the room was ok; it was just the windows that left something to be desired. But the caked layers of dust and cobwebs that filled the gaps between the two panes somehow also filtered the sunlight fractioning it into interesting shadows and patterns. One was left feeling the passing of time, of the stream of guests that must have stood right here, right back to when the windows were first installed and first cleaned; feeling history and and the story of their lives. The hotel was never going to score high on anyone's rating, but standing here really did make me think about the city. Location: Chicago, USA

Autumn in the Mountains

I return again and again to the mountains; not just physically, but in my thoughts. It is a place of total peace and beauty for me; balm to the soul and tonic to the mind. Ever changing, ever fresh. The view, like life itself, surprises constantly, even though the details of the landscape are familiar. It is once again a matter of seeing things from a fresh angle, in a new way, which I suppose is what photography is all about too. Up in these mountains one doesn't have to be much of an artist –nature takes care of the lighting, the colour, the contrasts and the subject matter, and all the photographer needs to do is point his camera in any of a dozen directions. Yet sometimes one feels particularly grateful for having managed to capture a moment and an atmosphere, with all its freshness, its sounds and part of one's own soul. This was one such occasion. Location: Valdres, Norway

Drying Out

Sometimes you have to look up to get the best perspective on something -for life as for photographs. So often we go through life looking straight ahead, missing the beauty just above our heads, or to one side, or down a side-alley. Goals are fine and necessary, but so is marvelling, feasting on the magic of the ordinary, and finding extraordinary rewards there. Like (for me) the one red piece of washing out to dry on this line. I found myself wondering whether it had found its way into the laundry by mistake, or by design. It certainly gave this rather cluttered but charming view of a Greek back street a focus. I also liked the lines and the way they cross, and the light. But the sky is really what does it for me –its blue vastness forming the perfect contrasting the cluttered conditions below. Location: Corfu, Greece

Dancing Cranes

Re-visiting Berlin this summer I had hoped to get some better photographs of various landmarks than I had a couple of years ago, for much of the city had been one vast building site for a long time. But, alas, it still is. Indeed, it is a booming time for construction there, and I have never seen so many roads being dug up, so many cranes on the skyline, so much scaffolding and so many building sites. Eventually I started taking pictures of them rather than the landmarks I was there for, reflecting that so much of Berlin's history has been precisely about construction and reconstruction and redevelopment. It is certainly the most vibrantly creative urban landscape in Europe today, and I am sure it will all be wonderful when it is finished. I look forward to that day... Location: Berlin, Germany

Hat Wall

This was taken with my old camera, so it's a bit fuzzy, but I liked the subject matter. I like hats – they are always fun to try on, and as an actor I get to do so quite a lot. I tried some of these ones on too, but in Texas they have a far more practical purpose than being merely for show, because -surprise, suprise- it gets HOT! What I particularly liked about this display in is that basically all the hats are the same - ie. the same style; it is merely the colours and sizes that are different, though there are some subtle differences with the brims. I wanted to buy them all, but didn't. But at least I got the picture! Location: San Antonio, Texas

Pink Pipes on Potsdamer Platz!

I have been away travelling, so this is the first post in a while. One of the places I visited was one of my favourite capital cities, Berlin. I suppose these gas pipes class as "street furniture, though they could equally pass as a modern art installation –the distinction between the two is frequently diffuse in the vibrant, bustling, eclectic metropolis that Berlin has become. What I particularly liked was how something that is potentially such an eye-sore on the iconic location of Potsdamer Platz becomes almost cheerful by being pink. I have always felt that many modern urban streetscapes are startlingly dull because of the constancy of grey, but a little colour really does make a difference. Location: Berlin, Germany