'When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.' I find it hard to believe that I haven’t used that quote from Ansel Adams before!
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A bonus I didn’t expect when joining a local photography group was that one of the members would own a patch of woodland. A wood that at the moment is full not of picnicking bears but of bluebells and other early spring flowers.
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Sitting on the plane that brought us home from Mexico we were congratulating ourselves on our timing. Tomorrow would be the first of March, and spring, we thought, just around the corner. We should have known better! Although in the fairly recent past (most notably the lockdown spring of 2020) we’ve had some wonderful March weather, this time last year I was writing that, ‘With a slow start to the spring this year it’s felt at times as if March was coming in more like a polar bear than a lion!’ And so it was again this year.
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I don’t know about you, but logic tells me that there is no more reason to make a resolution to do something better / more / less on the first of January than on any other day of the year. And also that there is no more reason to believe we will succeed in sticking to that resolution then rather than on a different date.
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How often have you gazed at a stunning landscape, pulled out the camera to capture its beauty, and been disappointed with the results? All too frequently, flat lighting and dull weather can make the scene look so much less inspiring to the camera lens than it did to your eyes.
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Where the River Tyne meets the North Sea lies the aptly named appealing town of Tynemouth. In the summer this is a popular low-key seaside resort, despite the chill of that well-named sea. And in winter it is an equally popular place for a bracing walk, either on the sands or on the paths and promenades above.
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The relics of Newcastle’s industrial past are being transformed. And nowhere is that more apparent than on the banks of the Ouseburn, a small tributary of the Tyne just east of the city centre. Here there are still plenty of signs of that past, including old warehouses and the remains of glass furnaces. But many of the old buildings have been transformed into cultural venues including galleries and artists’ studios.
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After a busy September, October and November (Paris / Chicago / Madagascar / Paris) it was rather pleasant to have a quieter month. Not that I’ve been doing nothing!
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Nothing says Christmas quite like an abundance of colourful lights. Whether on your tree at home, adorning the exterior of houses or an official display, they lift the spirits and set the mood for a joyful festival. For those of many religions, or none, such displays symbolise the triumph of light over darkness, bringing warmth and hope during the winter season.
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While a photo can tell a story without the need for words, and words can do likewise without any illustration, the combination of both can be more powerful than either. Each month Paula challenges us to find photos to match her chosen words. Some seem easy to ‘illustrate’, others I genuinely find challenging. But it’s an exercise I always enjoy!
