Mike's Photography, Travel, and anything else I can think of, Blog

Welcome to the blog—a space where photography and travel come together to tell richer, more meaningful stories. Here, you’ll find more than just destinations and images; it’s about capturing moments, understanding places, and seeing the world with intention. From practical shooting tips to reflections on the journey behind the lens, each post is designed to help you travel deeper and photograph with purpose. Whether you’re chasing light in a new city or learning to appreciate the details closer to home, you’re in the right place. There are places in the world where history feels distant, locked behind glass cases in museums or buried in textbooks. Greece is not one of those places, in Greece, history breathes: it lingers in the warm air rising from marble ruins, echoes through ancient amphitheatres, and stretches across olive-covered hills where myths were born. My journey between Athens, Mycenae, Ancient Corinth, and Epidaurus was more than a holiday; it felt like stepping into the fo...

Welcome to another blog in my mini-series of photography walks, which this week focuses on Harrogate, a town that I visit frequently, not necessarily to photograph, but just to wander around. Harrogate is a town where elegance quietly meets atmosphere — a place of sweeping green spaces, ornate Victorian façades, and endlessly shifting Yorkshire light. This photography walk is designed to help you slow down, observe, and capture the character woven into its streets, gardens, and skylines. In just a few hours, you’ll move from architectural detail to expansive landscapes, discovering how Harrogate reveals itself not in grand gestures, but in texture, symmetry, and moments of light. Here’s a 3-hour photography walk around Harrogate that's designed to maximise variety, variety of its architecture, its street scenes, its nature, and its classic spa-town details. Start in the Montpellier Quarter with its ornate Victorian architecture and the colourful shopfronts and cafés. Lo...

Welcome to the blog—a space where photography and travel come together to tell richer, more meaningful stories. Here, you’ll find more than just destinations and images; it’s about capturing moments, understanding places, and seeing the world with intention. From practical shooting tips to reflections on the journey behind the lens, each post is designed to help you travel deeper and photograph with purpose. Whether you’re chasing light in a new city or learning to appreciate the details closer to home, you’re in the right place. I am a big fan of Snapseed: I like its simplicity and the fact that it's free, unlike the Adobe stable of editing options. But then Snapseed 4.0 landed and my immediate response was I'm not sure I like this. Here's my summary of the changes, and whether I will continue to use it as my main photograph editing app.  For years, Snapseed barely changed. The app remained popular because of its clean interface, reliable tools, and straightfor...

Welcome to the blog—a space where photography and travel come together to tell richer, more meaningful stories. Here, you’ll find more than just destinations and images; it’s about capturing moments, understanding places, and seeing the world with intention. From practical shooting tips to reflections on the journey behind the lens, each post is designed to help you travel deeper and photograph with purpose. Whether you’re chasing light in a new city or learning to appreciate the details closer to home, you’re in the right place. This week's blog looks at one of the most basic aspects of photographic composition, the rule of thirds. Do your photos feel... boring? Most people put their subject right in the middle, which makes for a predictable shot. To prevent this happening you need to learn about and apply the rule of thirds to every shot you take. It's a simple trick that pros use to create dynamic, engaging photos. In my last blog I talked about cropping as a way of improvin...

Mornings in York reveal a different city from the one that exists during the day, bustling with tourists all vying to grab their photos of all that York has to offer. Before the streets fill and the medieval charm turns bustling, York becomes something else entirely, quieter, softer, almost abstract. Stone walls glow gently. Empty spaces emerge where crowds usually dominate. This walk isn’t about postcard landmarks or dramatic tourist shots. It’s about simplicity. Shapes. Light. Silence. Using nothing more than a smartphone, you’ll explore York as a study in minimalism, where small details, clean lines, and negative space tell a far more interesting story than the obvious views ever could.  For three hours, the goal is simple: slow down; simplify; see York differently. This is an early morning, minimalist smartphone photography walk around York, where as far as possible you should think in terms of: • Shapes • Negative space • Light and shadow • Clean lines • Single-sub...

Welcome to my latest blog, which this week takes a look at some of the common technical and conceptual mistakes beginners tend to make in photography, and how to correct them. Relying exclusively on full auto mode will stop you from understanding about the fundamentals of exposure. If you don't make the effort to learn how aperture, shutter speed, and ISO (the exposure triangle) all work and interact with each other, then your photography is never going to improve. You can fix this by switching to Aperture Priority (A/Av) mode or Shutter Priority (S/Tv) mode. In simple terms, Aperture Priority (A/Av) is when you choose the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed. With Shutter Priority (S/Tv) you choose the shutter speed and the camera sets the aperture. You need to understand these three basic elements of taking a photograph. Confusing or not understanding how each component of the exposure triangle affects your photos will give you inconsistent results. Here's a...