Here’s a first for my learning (b)log, an Instagram picture! I took that same view with a film camera at the same time but was experimenting with filters. I didn’t calculate the change in exposure correctly and the resulting pictures were very dark (but nicely contrasty).

Looking back through my Flickr stream it seems that many pictures include juxtaposition of some form, whether in composition or content. Juxtaposition in photography usually means placing two or more disparate elements in the same frame. The human brain looks for some link between the elements that might be obvious and straight-forward (a craftsman and his produce for example), or we can use it creatively to suggest a narrative or our own underlying concept. Either way, juxtaposition can make for a more interesting photograph than a straight-up view.

In this example, pedalos on the Słok Lagoon in Poland are positioned in a frame with the biggest carbon polluter in the European Union, the power station at Belchatow. We’re left to decide if pedalling out across the water in the dilapidated, plastic boats towards the humming, belching monstrosity is something that we’d like to do.

The exercise asked that we designed a magazine cover using an image featuring juxtaposition. Instead, I saw this more as an album cover and on Instagram said it was the lost album by the Stereophonics – Power Stations and Pedalos. Most of my contacts hoped that it would remain lost!