I’ve spent quite a few nights recently in the freezing cold with my friend Ade taking photos around various spots in Yorkshire. Oh how I’m looking forward to summer! However, despite the finger-numbing cold it’s been really good fun and I’ve managed to get some very interesting pictures of things I never would have even seen and learn a hell of a lot about photography.

I’m starting to look at the world in a different way now. When I used to drive along a road or walk down a street, I’d mostly be looking at where I was going, making sure I didn’t hit people and watching the speedo. Now I find myself trying to make a photo out of everything I see. I’m looking for angles, leading lines, shapes, textures and colours. I notice buildings I’ve never really looked at before. I look at the sky for interesting clouds. I’m really seeing the world around me rather than just looking at the ground.

It’s opened my eyes and once they’re open they can never be closed again - and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even the most mundane thing - like a wheelie bin or a ladder (below) - can look interesting if you frame it correctly.

And that’s the challenge, to take a picture of something I wouldn’t have even glanced at a few months ago and make it worthy of a place on my wall. The trouble now is that I only have a finite amount of wall space to fit them on!

My good lady, a couple of friends and I went over to the east coast on Sunday to try and take some photos. I was picturing in my head shots of cliffs, the sea at the bottom lashing the shore, a path along the top and a moody sky rich in colour and texture. Unfortunately we got rain and low cloud instead.

However, it turned out to be pretty good for photography - aside from having to dry the filters after every few shots. It did stop raining long enough for me to try and take a photo of a swan - annoyingly it beat its wings and looked majestic (as swans do) whenever I turned my back so I didn’t get a decent shot! Never work with children or animals… I did, however, get this:

It was worth the wet feet. No wait, it’s the fish and chips that made it worthwhile. Nice!

I take the business of eating curries very seriously. I’ve long resisted the urge to try my local Curry house for a couple of good reasons.

The first is that I’ve been going to the Aagrah in Skipton for years - so long in fact that when I phone up for a takeaway they recognise my accent and know who I am. They’ve been good to me and the quality of food and service has always been exemplary. I must have spent a fortune in there as I often eat in too - but it’s been worth every penny.

The second reason is that the Aagrah is 10 miles away. If it were nearer I’d eat there all the time, spend a lot of money, and get very fat. I love curries you see. So if my local curry house was on a par with the Aagrah, I’d have a serious problem.

Anyway, last weekend while I was out and about my girlfriend and her friend decided to try the local to see what it was like. It turns out much to my dismay that it was very good indeed. So with a heavy heart we got some takeaway this evening and I was close to tears munching my way through the meal as I realised that it was in fact excellent. If you felt a shiver run down your spine at around 21:30 GMT this evening you’ll realise why - the world has just changed.

I now have an easy option and it’s only a 2 minute walk away. I don’t have to remember to stay sober to drive and get the takeaway, I can stagger there any time I like… My name is John Conners and I’m a curry addict.

I spent a good part of Tuesday taking pictures of attractive women.

Perhaps I should clarify that a bit. We’re doing some work on our extranet and the idea came up that we should get some photos of our sales people - some team and individual shots - to show our customers that there are real people at the end of the phone. As I’m “into” photography I naturally volunteered to take the pictures. It was an interesting experience for several reasons.

Firstly, it was nice finally getting to talk to a lot of these attractive women I’ve only seen in the cafeteria and realise how nice they are. It’s amazing how you construct someone’s personality in your head from their appearance but that can turn out to be completely wrong.

It was fun trying to get people relaxed when I was taking their photo. A lot of women (usually the really good looking ones) don’t seem to like their picture being taken so I had to try a bit of banter with some to get them to oblige. And some of the complaints afterwards that they look terrible just mystifies me - why do the pretty ones often have such low self esteem? Still, I wish I’d discovered photography when I was younger and single - it’s a great way to get to meet women!

I also got a glimpse of what a pain being a photographer must be. You’d think that to get a team photo of, say 10 people would be easy enough. Just show them where to stand, get them to smile and click. But you really have to take control of people, get each person to stand in the right place to balance out the shot and pay attention at the back!

I think I’ll stick to the day job, although I’m rather pleased with how they came out. I had to continually resist the urge to go for good portrait shots or something arty. We wanted people to look like they were on the phone or something whereas my natural instinct is to try and get the best shot of people that they’d want to put on their wall at home or something interesting and a bit different. I guess sometimes you have to sacrifice creativity for work. It was fun though!

My girlfriend, her parents and my father met up this weekend at the place we’re getting married in July. Being a guy I’m not really into weddings. I thought I was the only one to wonder at the point of putting on such a big show when we’ve been together for six and a half years already and living together for over two, but it turns out that weddings are a girl thing. A lot of my married friends admit that it was the girl who organised the whole thing and they pretty much “turned up on the day”. So with that burden of guilt lifted I can look forward to it without feeling I have to get as excited as my good lady!

Anyway, it was a nice, albeit short trip up north not helped by the fact that I was a bit knackered. However it was good to see the place and check out the local accommodation for guests. Oh, and as I had my camera I insisted we go and find a ruined castle or something equally as interesting to take pictures of…

This isn’t the castle I’m getting married in, this is Caeverlock Castle which has seen better days. What I often forget having grown up in Scotland is that castles are quite a novelty to many. Scotland is covered in the things so I’ve never really paid much attention to them (apart from Eilean Donan Castle - the one in Highlander).

What is interesting is that the area around Dumfries (where we were) is where a lot of interesting 13th and 14th century history happened that I learned about in school - there are more Robert Bruce memorials than you can shake a stick at. Maybe I’ll finally buy my self a copy of Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland by G.W.S. Barrow and read it without my history teacher looking over his half-moon glasses at me!