Thomas Jefferson said, 'The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.' This is a maxim I would do well to follow, but I too rarely succeed in doing so.
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In 1132 a small group of monks left their Benedictine Monastery in York, fed up with the extravagant and rowdy lifestyle of the monks there. Seeking a more devout and simple way of life, they were granted a parcel of land by the River Skell where they built a small wooden church and applied, successfully, to join the Cistercian order.
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Burning Man is a unique event that takes place every year in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, USA. But we are not in the deserts of Nevada; we are among the green hills of England’s Peak District.
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When Alexander Hadfield, a tailor, ordered a bale of cloth to be sent from London to his home in the small Derbyshire village of Eyam, he cannot have dreamed of the dreadful consequences. Nor could he have dreamed that this simple action would be remembered centuries later.
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Somehow, getting up early to watch a sunrise is so much easier when travelling. Of course it helps that the setting is usually both more beautiful and more interesting than the rooftops of our London suburbs above which we would normally see it rise.
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How many windows is too many? That was the question facing many seventeenth century property owners. In 1696 a window tax was introduced in England and Wales. The more windows a building had, the more its owner had to pay.
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If you like a palace to be somewhat grandiose, testament to the rich family it once housed, come with me to Rundāle Palace in the Latvian countryside. Its 18th century splendour has been painstakingly restored and is in places almost overwhelming in its extravagance.
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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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Udaipur’s setting in the Aravalli Mountains, and around a string of man-made lakes, gives it a unique character among Rajasthan’s cities. Arriving here it is immediately obvious why it is so often called the ‘city of lakes’.
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Let’s consider how much of your image is occupied by your main subject. Often the answer to that is, quite a lot of it. But you can take this to extremes, either filling the frame completely or leaving lots of empty space around your subject. Both can be effective, in different ways.
