As a photographer I always though I noticed everything along my morning rides, but then when I actually started bringing my camera along and composing images along the way I realised how much I had been missing - all the details and minutiae of the landscape, streetscapes, seaside. Statues, scrollwork, plaques, little kiosks, architectural details, the often intricate Victorian ironwork on public benches, old letterboxes with the ciphers of Queen Victoria and Edward VII on them, the sinuous curve of a lane through the hedgerows etc. The more I rode, and the more images I shot, the more marvellous my every day route became. I showed some of my images to my editor once - he was a cyclist himself - and he sighed over the beauty of where I was privileged to take my daily rides and wished he had so picturesque a commute himself. It made me laugh. This was springtime. He was riding into work along the Potomac, through a landscape full of cherry blossoms and monuments. And he envied me?
Anyone just passing through where I take my morning ride would probably see nothing but a drab, faded old English seaside town. There is so much out there that is beautiful and picturesque, if we only take the time to look.
