Back in the 1970s I made part of my living as a photographer. Mainly, it was press photography and  a good deal of my success was due to the fact that I was prepared and able to talk myself into most places that I wanted to be and talk myself out of awkward situations.  Often it was a bit like being in the wild west, the winner was always the one who was fastest on the draw (in this case the shutter).  It was literally point and shoot.

A lot of my photography was done covertly because I was in Northern Ireland where the British army were not very pleased when someone wanted to take some action pictures of them and they had ways of disabling your camera very quickly.

I got used to this way of taking pictures and was quite surprised when I joined Canterbury Photographic Society some years ago and found that with a few exceptions my pictures were not well received by those judging the club competitions.  Why? My pictures were sharp, properly exposed and usually, I thought, well composed.  Yet they did not meet the required standard.

I soon learned that landscape photography, which is what I enjoy most, takes a lot of time, thought and concentration.  I had to learn a completely different way of taking pictures and the most important lesson was
about using a tripod and how much it improves the quality of landscape and nature pictures.

This kind of photography can be very relaxing and your results are rewarding. It is time consuming mostly because you have to wait for the light to be right. Shadows in