FALLING SOMEWHERE AS RAIN

Costa's One of my favourite places for photography is the island of Cyprus. I have visited the vicinity of Paphos several times in recent years and always find something new to shoot. Besides being an ideal location for infra-red photography, due to the strong sunlight, it's a country with a rich history and beautiful architecture. Certain parts of the city, away from the tourist areas, are economically depressed and quite run down. Its also a well known fact that if a new building remains unfinished - ie. if the roof are still need finishing, then the owner will not have to pay certain taxes, so many of the buildings look run down, even though they are perfectly habitable. Tourism being such a mercurial beast, businesses appear and disappear rapidly, leaving shops and houses empty and abandoned, as money and interest moves quickly. Don't Tell the Bees Immediately outside the city, in the old town, the more rustic way of life is still very prevalent and flourishing in the s...

Being resident in semi-rural Lancashire has its benefits, as there is always something to photograph nearby. The relatively flat landscape runs away to the edge of the Pennines and the TV transmitter station is clearly visible on remote Winter Hill 20 miles away from my home. Winter weather always provides beautiful vistas, as fog and frost covers the land as the sun edges up over Beacon Hill. Arable and crop farming have taken place in the area for centuries, with the canal network used to ship out vegetables and crops to Liverpool, returning with ballasts of night soil to be spread on the fields again as fertiliser. As testament to this rich history, the landscape is dotted with relics of a past age - dilapidated farm buildings, rotting husks of greenhouses and in almost every field corner - old farm machinery. The landscape quickly overruns the relics, covering the old brickwork with moss and ivy and entombing the machines in tibetan balsam and crab grass. A lot of the old tractors ...