I’d had several goes at taking this photo but none of them came out very well, mostly because I haven’t got a lens wide enough to get the whole pylon in plus a bit round the edges for spare.  So one dry day I went back with the mighty Hasselblad, lay down on my back and took a couple of frames straight up.  Getting up and dusting myself down, I saw a chap detach himself from a passing group.

“Is it a Hasselblad?”

“Yes” I said and showed it to him.

“Did you get it all in?” he asked, gesturing at the pylon towering over us.

“I’m not sure”

He whipped out his iphone, scrolled down, and held it up to me.  On the screen there was a perfect image, taken from below of, he told me, this very pylon.  It was exactly what I was trying to capture on film.

His iphone had two advantages.  Firstly, its lens is much wider than the Hasselblad’s and so it was much easier to capture the whole of the pylon’s base.  Secondly, you can take as many digital shots as you want and have a look at the results in situ until you get exactly what you are aiming for. You can’t do that with film.

Such an experience is chastening for the film photographer but only momentarily. As I continued my walk the phrase ‘the willing acceptance of unnecessary obstacles’ popped into my head.  It was coined, I believe, by a sports coach named Bernard Suits as a general characterisation of sport. Accepting more obstacles, he said, brings improvement for those who are able to overcome them.

I consoled myself with the thought and then turned my attention to the reeds along the waterside as I walked. Their spindly delicacy always catches my eye when I take this route. Take that, iphone!