Gallery: Comic and Games festival in Lucca
For three days we had wandered the streets of the ancient walled city of Lucca. It was all very laid-back and very Italian. Then on the last day of our stay, everything changed…
In search of Billy the Kid
On the vast plains of New Mexico, with their huge skies, and more cattle than people, it is not difficult to imagine a cowboy galloping over the nearest ridge. And wherever you go in this state, the ghosts of outlaws past will follow you, most notably Billy the Kid.
A neighbourhood walk
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.
Roots: dark history or tourist trap?
As our boat neared the jetty some village children ran to meet us. Whether in excitement at the break in the routine of the day, or in expectation that tourists meant tips, I wasn’t sure – probably a mix of the two. I couldn’t help but reflect how differently the boats docking here would have been greeted in the past.
Gallery: Victoria Falls – what a treat
The indigenous name for Victoria Falls is Mosi-oa-Tunya or The Smoke that Thunders, and it is a fitting name. The constant spray is as thick as smoke, and the roar of the water is indeed like thunder.
Gallery: the doors of Tallinn
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?
Gallery: mosaic portraits of a dynasty
The people of North Korea are not so very different from those of every other country. Like people the world over they want to feel safe, to be in good health, to have the basic necessities of life. If they have children, they want the same for them and they want them to thrive and do well in their lives.
Rapa Nui: the mystery of the moai
‘We could hardly conceive how these islanders, wholly unacquainted with any mechanical power, could raise such stupendous figures’
‘Baptised in the blood of so many good men’
‘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.’
Gallery: the Painted Ladies of Cape May
Until I visited, all my images of New Jersey came from song lyrics – Paul Simon’s traffic-clogged turnpike and Bruce Springsteen’s urban working class childhood.