For me this past June has been one of more than usually changeable weather. I started the month inside the Arctic Circle where in the first few days of meteorological summer the temperature didn’t rise above six or seven degrees Celsius and was often colder than that. I then returned to a London going into its first heatwave of the summer, hitting thirty degrees on a couple of days. Towards the end of the month the temperature dropped to the more usual, and comfortable, low to mid-twenties.
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May is an especially lovely month in England. At the start of the month spring is at its height, while by the end there are hints of the summer to come. With spring being late this year, the early part of May felt more like April, with chilly winds and frequent showers. But the trees were green at last after the winter bareness, and there were flowers everywhere!
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When the Shard opened in London in 2012 it did so to quite a fanfare, and to a rather damp squib (in my view) of a laser show. But despite the laser show disappointing, the tower never has. Although not to everyone’s taste (the fractured ‘shards’ at the top that give it its name divide opinion), I have always found it striking.
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As well as being a successful novelist and poet, Vita Sackville-West is known for the beautiful gardens she created at Sissinghurst in Kent. She will have welcomed April as all gardeners do … but maybe not the April we have had this year.
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While many people head to Holland to see the tulips, we have London’s Holland Park. There the Dutch Gardens are planted with formal beds edged with low hedges and overflowing with tulips every spring.
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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! We had sharp winds, frosts and even some snow as far south as London, although nothing like what they had further north. And even when the weather started to warm up, sunshine was in short supply.
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Thankfully this January didn’t bring snow to London, but it was certainly more than cold enough to make any feet and fingers glow! Personally I can’t wait for the warmer days of spring, although we’re not hanging around here for that but are headed elsewhere in a hunt for heat!
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The oft-quoted line, ‘when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’ comes from a discussion between Johnson and James Boswell about whether or not Boswell's affection for London would wear thin should he be living there as Johnson did, rather than enjoying the city on occasional visits.
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Photography, like all arts, is a subjective business. We all have our favourites. At times though it seems it’s almost as hard to judge other people’s work as it is our own. Nevertheless, we often do just that.
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How good are you at self-criticism when it comes to photography? Are you ruthless about discarding less successful shots? And can you easily decide which of several is your best?
