There certainly aren't many advantages to be accrued from the Covid pandemic but there has been one for me: I've discovered that you don't have to travel hundreds of miles to find interesting subjects to photograph. My latest discovery has possibly led to an overload of images on Instagram (user name milescrisell) but it has also led to 3 decent results in Banbury Camera Club (www.banburycameraclub.org.uk) competitions. Following on from a Second and a Highly Commended as mentioned in my previous blog post I have just been placed Second in the Annual PDI competition. So where is this picturesque location that is providing me with such rich pickings? Well.....it's a concrete overflow on the Oxford Canal on the northern outskirts of Banbury. This is about a 15 minute walk from my front door although I normally take a more circuitous route through the town centre and out along the canal towpath which allows me to pick up an excellent coffee from the Pavement Cafe in the Banbury Museum building (wwwpavementcoffeeco.com). Although I will typically pass 1 or even 2 Greggs stores on this route I have to try and pass on a sausage bap in the interests of weight management!
At first glance this concrete structure provides no photographic opportunities whatsoever and I have certainly walked past it many times without realising it's potential. However, on closer inspection I realised that there were often leaves stuck on the edge of one of the "steps" which, when photographed using a slow shutter speed, gave a decent image and, when manipulated much more than I would normally do in Photoshop Elements, could give some very interesting images. If you've read this far you're either quite interested in photography or convinced that I've "lost the plot". If you're in the former group you may be interested to know that I have set up a new Gallery as a sub-gallery of the Banbury Area Gallery entitled Oxford Canal Overflow...then again you may not be!