Michael Hilton

This is definitely an impressive library. The key to the picture is symmetry; and I have almost got that perfect. Almost. I have actually dialled back the cyan colour coming through the windows as it looked artificial.

On a chilly and windy evening I walked up Calton Hill in Edinburgh to see the classic view towards the city with the Dugald Stewart monument on the left side. The sun wasn’t in the right place for that, it turned out. But there were amazing clouds all around. So here are three pictures taken from spots at the top of the hill looking in different directions.

In all cases I’d exposed for the clouds, which means I had to brighten the foregrounds considerably.

Not sure about the last one; the clouds look quite unreal?

I could see all the boats lining up, perhaps for the start of a race, so I tried a bit of In Camera Movement, ICM*, to make the scene more impressionistic than realistic. Just a quick wave of the camera up and down.

The only thing afterwards was deciding how to crop the final image. Close in on the boats? Lots of space? Horizon in the middle, upper or lower third? This is what I decided on in the end. Hope you like it!

*or is it Intentional Camera Movement, or Motion?

I do love a staircase. Maybe not climbing all the way up it, but certainly looking at them.

Manchester’s architecture is changing faster than I have ever seen before, propelled by modern skyscrapers.

This is old and new Manchester, near Deansgate Station.

Wildflowers are getting more and more popular in Great Britain, which is a good thing for all sorts of reasons, not least they look so appealing. But they can be hard to photograph when there are so many. It’s important to find a focal point, somewhere for the eye to come to rest. In this case it’s a single pink poppy backlit by the sun. Oh yes, the sun. Sometimes a nuisance in flower photography but here it helps make the picture what it is.

An evening walk along the beach. I’m not a natural history photographer but these stranded jellyfish made an unusual and static subject. Being the evening it was getting a bit dark but that also lent atmosphere and they seemed to pick up and concentrate what little light there was left.

A trip to Valencia should be on every photographer’s list. It is hard to take a bad picture around the very modern City of Arts and Sciences. If you like dramatic architecture it is the place to be. The picture above is very geometric, although my usual style is more curvy.

According to my camera this was taken at 6:05am; and pre-sunrise the weather was pretty bad. So it can be worth getting out early. How many great sunrises have I missed by not getting up in the dark on the offchance?

Probably lots.