Stadium, Durban, South Africa

Lots of people photograph iconic architecture, so the challenge is to try and see it a bit differently. Stadiums are about people, they contain spectators - and people move into them before events, and out of them after events. And in-between, there isn't much movement, so they sit there like big UFO's.

So movement is a nice thing, here with a single solitary girl, dead-still on her mobile phone for some balance to the image. Maybe she couldn't find someone, or maybe they never came.

Moses Mabhida Stadium, Durban - the iconic stadium built for the Soccer World Cup 2010, Nikon D700, June 2012

Surprise!

Coming home to a surprise in the evening is quite a delight, and so it was when I found our bed scattered with balloons.

Photography is about memories and moments that have already occured, and I wanted to somehow record this lovely moment, so I spent quite a bit of time photographing the bed and the balloons at different angles. But none of them worked. I think I was trying too hard!

So I went back to basics - what was the moment? What was the memory? Was it the balloons on the bed? Not really, when you think about it.

It was actually the moment of surprise when you walk from a dark passage into a gently illuminated room and see the balloons - surprise is the moment when the usual is replaced by the unusual...

I think the image works nicely because it goes back to the basics of what it was all about. And in many ways photography does require some thought, and it's not always just a random clicking of buttons. But not too much thought, either!

{This was taken on the Canon G1-x, and as I have come to expect from this camera, it works well in low light and never lets me down. In fact, I normally add in some noise in Photoshop to give the image some texture. (Add noise, monochromatic, Gaussian, normally just 1 or 1,5)}