Every day, I make the same journey on foot from where I park my car to where I work in the city of Cremona in Italy. Each time, though, I challenge myself to see something new.

I am especially passionate about seeing beauty in the seemingly banal. The visual details that most people pass by without the slightest regard. I once heard another photographer describe this as ‘keeping a soft eye’ and continually developing that sensitive and all-seeing eye. Sometimes, of course, we are distracted by other complications in our daily lives, but I treat my photography as a kind of meditation. So often I can find myself living too much inside my own head, but my camera – as often as possible kept in my right hand – snaps me out of this state and reminds me of the joys to be had from looking outwards.

This also means sometimes not taking a photograph, as I try to be discerning in my choices – ‘is it good enough’ – is one of the most common thoughts as I walk and evaluate. By developing my ‘soft eye’, I have found so often that my favourite photographs come from exactly this daily exercise. Sometimes I might find myself envying people sent on projects to photograph far places like Tokyo or Ulaanbaatar, but I am almost always left disappointed by their results as they lack the kind of familiarity – and therefore intimacy – that requires time or, at the very least, a very well-trained level of sensibility.

What if (which is my favourite way to start any conversation) the best photograph that you take this year is right under your nose, just around the corner from your home, or nudging up right next to where you take your first espresso of the day?

What are the TWO most impactful features that make your image a good photograph? Don’t be shy!

1) Avoid the temptation to push the colours too much, and ensure that the playfulness of the colours is in their mid-tone hues – that the playfulness invites the viewer to look closer to get the most out of the experience.

2) That sometimes the crop can be a protagonist. Creating intimacy and emphasising a kind of triple framing by both the bush and the architectural features.

If you could make this photo again, what would be the ONE thing you would like to do better or differently?

I would shoot it when the light was even flatter – probably earlier in the morning.

Paul Thompson shared this photograph with the FRAMES Facebook Group.

Photographer

Paul Thompson, Brescia, Italy

INSTAGRAM

Equipment and settings

FujifilmX100V
1/150, 23 mm, ISO 160, Ff/2,8