In this case I want to share a review of a fantastic new eBook from the Craft and Vision stable, that I know I could NEVER have written however much I might have wanted to.

Stuart Sipahigil has just released “Close to Home”. Like many eBooks from Craft and Vision it mixes stunning, powerful and captivating images, with well structured, engaging and easily digestible prose.

What marks this book out for me in particular is that is written by an Amateur photographer, and dear friend Stuart Sipahigil. And I use that amateur epithet wisely. “Amateur” in the best traditions of the word – someone that does this purely for the love and pleasure of the craft and not for financial gain.

Stuart has managed to make the complex seem simple. He has taken the premise that great images can and should be made in your own backyard. He helps explore the “why” you should take these images, not just the “how”.

He shares that through a combination of inspiration, perseverance, change in perspective and renewed motivation, all of us have the opportunity to take stunning images without having to bankrupt ourselves on long overseas adventures, to places which have more letters than vowels in their names or where English is used more as a curse than a language.

His book inspires you to pick up your camera and go and re-discover what is on your doorstep. Through sharing both his own stunning images – all taken within a stone’s throw of his own back yard – with some ideas, some exercises and some gentle cajoling, he will energize you to go out and create your own masterpiece.

This is a well-written, thoughtful, helpful and inspirational read. If you buy no other Craft and Vision book, buy this one.

If you tweet about no other Craft and Vision book or share on Facebook what your latest great read was, then make it this eBook.

It is at the ridiculous price of $5. You can buy it by clicking on the banner to the side of this post or on the link here. Tell your friends about it. If any book is going to inspire you to look differently at your surroundings and realize how rich in potential imagery they are, then this is it.

Stuart – thank you for sharing your ideas, your words and your images.

This weekend I am in Northern Ireland for a friends wedding – a place that has changed so much in the 15 years since I was lived here, and with the “troubles” now almost a distant memory, it was a joy to be back in this beautiful part of the United Kingdom.

I went up to the famous historic landmark, the Giant Causeway – reputedly – with some friends. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great, the light a little flat and the limited time we had meant that the causeway was full of other tourists walking over this extraordinary site.

My aim was to practice landscape composition, some slow shutter speeds of the seascape and to look for some unusual composition or angles that were not just the normal vista of the causeway.

The results are okay – nothing stellar – and the limited time meant that I had only started to explore the possibilities by the time we had to go! But it taught me the value of getting out more often, of keeping thinking about what is in the frame, what to include, what to consciously exclude an to keep exploring different angles of the same composition.

I was pleased with how quickly I got back into the groove, and how my mind started to think abut the light the reflections, the angles, the patterns and the compositions – all things that I know I am going to need front of mind when in Italy with David and Jeffrey at the end of the month.

It also taught me the value of researching a location before hand. I had had a quick look on the web to see what local landscape photographers had done, and although due to the time of day or the time of year I couldn’t produce something similar, it did help me identify some location angles that I wanted to explore and some that I wanted to avoid.