When the architect Sir John Soane built his weekend retreat, Pitzhanger Manor, in what was then rural Ealing, his aim was to design a showcase for his own idiosyncratic architectural style with its stripped classical detail, radical colour schemes and inventive use of space and light. Here he would entertain some of the most influential people of the day.
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What is it that makes so many doors and windows beg to be photographed? Is it that they intrigue us by hinting at what might lie beyond, if we were to open them? Or more simply, that they provide decoration and interest to what would otherwise be blank walls?
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'Here terrible portents came about over the land of Northumbria, and miserably frightened the people: there were flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air.'
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Is there a traveller or photographer anywhere who doesn’t dream of one day seeing the Aurora? It may be a scientific phenomenon, but the artistry of those beautiful glowing colours that seem to appear almost mysteriously in the sky can’t fail to induce awe in anyone who sees them.
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‘Everybody knows the moon is made of cheese...’ Wallace in ‘A Grand Day Out’
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'Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly.'
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On a recent visit to Swaledale I became obsessed with capturing the patterns created by the drystone walls dissecting the fields above the valley and the stone barns scattered across the green landscape.
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The road twisted and turned up the mountain, winding through what seemed to be quite ancient woodland, and emerged on to the grasslands above. The crumbling hulk of the monument loomed above us, the last wisps of cloud just drifting away.