A beautiful place can be beautiful in different ways at different times. Less than a month ago, the Botanical Gardens were full of light shining through red and golden leaves, reflections and shadows. Today the beauty was darker and more spare: raindrops, bare branches....This was one of the few shots I processed in colour.

In other news, I went to see Satyajit Ray's film 'The Big City' last night and, as I often do, I looked up Roger Ebert's review of it before I went. And, as he often was, he was spot on. His last few paragraphs sum up how I feel about film. He was right then, and he's even more right now:

That is why I have so much trouble approaching Ray's films as "foreign." They are not foreign. They are about Indians, and I am not an Indian, but Ray's characters have more in common with me than I do the comic-strip characters of Hollywood.

Ray's people have genuine emotions and ambitions, like the people next door and the people in Peoria and the people in Kansas City. There is not a person reading this review who would not identify immediately and deeply with the characters in "The Big City."

By contrast, Hollywood films with exploding cigarette lighters and gasping starlets and idiot plots are the real "foreign" films. They have nothing at all in common with us, and Satyajit Ray of India understands us better than Jerry Lewis.

Rober Ebert, 1968