"That's not the way Miami looks"

Yesterday I was having a mope around wishing I had all the kit, and today I went back to the spider bush in the garden and saw something I've never seen before - a spider had caught a fly in its web and was busy wrapping it up for later.

To be honest, he was doing a bad job of it - they make it look a lot neater on TV!

"If ONLY I had the camera/lens to get the picture I want...."

As I wondered back in doors, I scooped up the latest edition of "Digital Photographer" - full as always of handy hints and tips for the descerning photographer. Lots of "ISO this" and "appature that", and "hey, how have you lived your life without this filter?!"

Then I read an interview with a profesional photographer by the name of Brian Smith. In it he talks about his career, and style of photography.

One thing that stood out without reading the text was the colour. Every shot is so vibrant and colourful.

"Most of the portfolios of photographers I see out of New York are cold and grey and desaturated colour. That's not the way Miami looks"

This got me thinking- what's the point of having all the gear, and no idea?

I'm a designer (sort of) - if it's one thing I can be, it's creative (sort of), and one thing I have always quietly liked is finding something random and bright and colourful in the middle of a gray standard world. (Think lime green mini in a traffic jam of black and silver corporate Audi's on a motorway).

So I set about thinking of ways to capture colour using what I have.

A 10 year old 4MP compact camera, an old CD sat next to my computer and a light bulb.

What do you think?

Oh, also - not sure if it's just me - but do you have any idea how hard it is to 'process' a picture like this in Photoshop? The moment you touch it, the colours just look.... wrong. So this is straight from the camera (ok, so with a little light airbrushing out of the light bulb) - colours and all.