It’s all the same stuff: the same garden, the same flowers, the same butterflies and the same cameras. And if I’m honest, I have had to make myself work quite hard to try to see it differently.

I am, as I imagine so many of us are, desperate for visual novelty, but on the occasions when I venture out to a slightly wider world somewhere these days, it’s not for a leisurely photowalk, but with cautious purpose and efficiency. I am gradually coming back to my cameras, and to image-making, but my day-to-day world remains quite small and circumspect.

So instead of that surefire antidote to boring photos – putting myself in front of more interesting things – I have been trying my best to see my commonplace, every year, things in new ways.

To get closer.

To see what changes when I shift my focus from a traditional subject to its shadow.

And to attempt to depict the essence of the thing in my viewfinder rather than a more accurate representation.

I can’t imagine the kind of tricks to which I’ll have to resort to keep myself engaged through the winter. But October gives us the first hints of that cinematic winter light which lies just around the corner . . .

Keep your eyes wide open,
Debbie