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Gerald Ponting -
writer, publisher, photographer, lecturer,
based in central southern England

While any keen photographer will often want to carefully plan shots to obtain exactly the effect wanted, it is also true that sometimes the best pictures are ‘grab shots’. Obviously, one has to have the camera ready for the occasion when an image presents itself, often for just a moment. This is a good example, taken at a popular viewpoint at the Meteora rocks in Greece. I’d been taking general shots of rocks and monasteries lit by the late afternoon sun, when I noticed this crazy couple!
I call the shot - ‘Precarious!’.

‘Misty Afternoon at Martyr Worthy’ is one of my most successful photographs, having appeared in two national magazines and on calendars, and having won a trophy at Camera Club. There was no planning - the image just presented itself by chance on a country walk.

‘Stormy Afternoon at Brambridge’ was a chance shot on another country walk by the River Itchen. I would have liked the swan a little nearer, but a heavy shower was rapidly approaching.
It led me to plan the other two shots here, for a competition involving three slides on the same theme. I decided to match the afternoon shot with a dawn photo, higher up the course of the same river, and a sunset on the estuary.

A little planning went into ‘Cyprus Postmistress’, as I had asked her to sit in the light of her open doorway, but a lot of serendipity was involved. We had stopped in a remote mountain village to check the correct route back to our hotel, when she came out of the post office, which was also her kitchen and the village cafe, and invited us, with sign language, to join her for some coffee.

‘Sunset at Bitterne’ and ‘Dawn at Martyr Worthy’ both involved forward planning - consulting a map for the position and my Photographer’s Sundial for the time and direction of the sunrise or sunset, and waiting

for suitable weather. In the case of the sunrise shot, it involved anticipating the mist, based on a weather forecast, and getting up early in time to drive and walk to the best spot. Fortunately, the river mist appeared as predicted.

I’m not a bird photographer, but this robin, perched on a churchyard wall, was so friendly that it chose to pose for me and I had to remove my longest lens for a shorter telephoto.