Finding inspiration while out and about

Where do writers get the details for their descriptions?

One of the things I like to do when I'm away from home is get lots of pictures. Although the smartphone has many down sides to it, the ease with which we can take hundreds of quick, good-quality snaps is incredible. You may be young enough not to remember life before cameras on phones, or even before photography was largely digital. In the olden days, we used to have to remember to take our camera with us, but we also used to have to remember to pack batteries and film. And the amount of film you had available was always horribly limited. Spools came in sizes like 24 and 36, I think, and that was it: once you had taken your 24 photos, it was all over. Not only that, but you didn't even get to see what you had snapped. You looked through the viewfinder, hoped for the best, and pressed the button. It was days, or even weeks later, that you got to see what you had photographed. For my part, it was generally an extreme closeup of my thumb.

Nowadays, even my thumb can't ruin all the pictures. In fact, when I remember to look at the screen, I even usually manage to move it out of the way in time. The beauty of getting lots of pictures is that you can look through them when you get home and take ideas from the colours, shapes and angles. Or, when it comes to the moments when you need to describe buildings or the natural world, you can look through your pictures and match up those descriptions with the emotional response that you had at the time when you decided you needed to capture the moment.

I like to get out and about for walks and runs, whether I'm at home or away on holiday. If I'm running, I tend to lack the coordination to take pictures, but I sometimes spot things and make a note to come back to that place another day, when I'm on a walk. On walks, I'm as frustrating as a puppy, constantly stopping to take pictures or have a closer look at things. This is me: "Why is that tree so bent like that? Something must have happened: there's a story in that"; "How come the path has those ruts in it? What passed by here?"; "What kind of bird is that? Those colours are so vibrant." And so on.

What should you take away from all of this? Probably don't go out for walks with me.