Boats For Hire

The harsh sun has dipped towards the sea but sends its last rays of warm gold across the water to reflect against the equally gold hulls of these boats, berthed close to a beach on the northern coast of Corfu. Fishing boats are berthed behind them, and out on the water a single little ferry is heading out into the sunset. These boats would have been busy taking tourists along the coastline earlier in the day but now they can rest gently until tomorrow. I like the calm of the picture; though there is a lack of people there is no sense of isolation. Also the picture has a nice temperature about it; the lingering warmth of a hot day giving way to a milder but sweetly tempting Greek evening...

Location: Corfu, Greece

Walls That Talk

I regularly pass by this open piece of ground in central Oslo, wedged in between buildings. Once a building stood here too; I remember it well as it used to house a fun nightclub and bar and later café, before the whole building was gutted in a fire one New Year's Eve (which I witnessed. Apart from a tiny fragment of the entrance (which is not visible here) the whole place was pulled down, the basement beneath the ground here filled in, and now fifteen or more years later– it lingers in the sun; occasionally cars may park here, but it's not been made to accommodate vehicles in any way –the area is simply waiting. Yet every time I pass by I'll recall a memory or two of fun times spent here back in the nineties, and then I'll get distracted by the decaying grandeur of the adjacent walls. I love the mix of textures, the unevenness, the sense of space, and I've passed by so many times meaning to take pictures here but never getting around to it –until now. The black and white rendition somehow just seems right, placing the image into a stylised past that is both evocative and strangely beautiful despite the decay.

Location: Oslo, Norway

Old Doors

A return to the wonderful railway yard in my old home town in Norfolk –just about my favourite place in the whole world to explore photograph. The clutter and junk of trains has for me a curious beauty about it, as does here the textures and lines and uneven surfaces. You don't really have to be a good photographer to get a good picture here (a bit like Venice), you just point and shoot and you'll capture something interesting. Of course, some thought to composition and light does help, but I have found that very few of the many, many pictures I have taken at this railway yard have worthless or had to be discarded –certainly compared to anywhere else I take photographs. Everything is worth saving. And here, this applies to the old train carriage doors that have been stacked up against the wall of the workshop. How many people have stepped through these doors at the start or end of a journey? How many have stood in the window, waving to loved ones as the train slips out the station. Will the doors ever be used again? Who knows -it would be nice to think so. Yet here they now bask in the sun reliving perhaps their days of glory and swapping tales of late passengers and impatient guards...

Location: East Dereham, England

The Day Off

A picture that smacks of relaxation, independence and the joy of free time. I like the neatness of the photograph, Without the white beach hut in the foreground I think the image of the relaxing man would be isolated, but here it has a comforting presence. I also like how he is placed between the two buoys out in the sea. The motive may make us smile a little but it is the the composition that really makes the picture, I feel.

Location: Deal, England