Well, the plans to book flights by the end of the weekend have fallen through, but still I think I’ve actually picked a date to leave. Still umm-ing and arr-ing about whether to go to both Cambodia and Vietnam, or just Cambodia. In the meantime I thought I’d post an image from my urban gallery. I’m not quite sure why I like this one, but I think it is because it could be from any city in any country and it is only the writing that gives us a clue as to its origins. It’s the fact that it feels gritty, that it’s a little mundane that I like. Like everyone else, I like to photograph the exotic sights of far off places, but, for me at least, urban photography means photography away from the such tourist areas, in districts where the locals live, play and work. And irrespective of country or continent, such districts all look remarkable similar. A great testament to the fact that, across the World, we all all pretty much the same.

On the technical side, this was meant to be a blue-hour shot, but I was seriously delayed photographing some metro station and woefully underestimated the time to get to here from there. So blue hour had gone and the night sky was in full force. I wanted the red fire hydrant to dominate the foreground and even although the station is far bigger and brighter, I think I’ve achieved that. I decided on the mono conversion as without the deep azure of the sky the upper part of the frame lacked any interest and the red and white car lights, the traffic lights and warm lighting from the station all competed for attention. Too messy. Simpler to de-complicate the image by removing the colour and relying on the light and dark to tell the story. I’d be interested in what you think…