I had a few hours to kill before work this morning. So I decided to head down to a public garden a few miles from my house. In the summer this place is full of colour, with roses growing everywhere, up trellises, along the walls, above your head. It’s an old Fort on the seafront, built to defend the city from French invasion.

At this time of year, it was dead. The only colour was the light grey of the footpaths, & the brown of the soil. I was sitting on the ground, trying to get some nice low angle shot of the sundial in the middle, when a couple of little old ladies walked along behind me. I didn’t hear much, but I did hear one of them say “Perhaps he sees something we can’t.”

As I was cycling home again I started to think about what they had said. Since I started taking photography seriously, I often find that I think about what I see in a different way. I try to look past the everyday stuff, & look for the underlying patterns in the world around me, or the colour in unexpected places. Instead of thinking “Oh, that’s a nice view” I think about how best to capture the moment, & share it with the world. I don’t think I saw anything that they could not, but I hope I was able to see it in a different way.

I’ve got some of the photos here. It’s not my best work though:

About the Author

Martin Cox is an amateur photographer based in Portsmouth, UK. He enjoys creating portraits of his friends and family, as well as shooting in cemeteries. His aim is to build up skill and confidence in street photography, documenting everyday life in an engaging way. If you’d like to see more of his work, you can check out his website.