Photo Of The Moment

I've been gazing at this picture intermittently for some weeks now, ever since Mr Posingis chucked it up on his blog.

There are several reasons why it takes my breath away in quite spectacular style.

The first is that it evokes feelings and stirs my senses. I can smell the air, I can hear the noises, the animal sounds, the cricket type hissing and the vague and distant occasional car horn or diesel rumble.

It makes me think of stopping for lunch in another half hour or so and having the rice and curry buffet at a rest house.

I've always wanted, yet never managed, to take a picture that has hills and that gradual shading that turns one colour into an infinite number of tones. This picture must contain just about every shade of black and white possible.

The sheer scale and depth of the image is crucial in its success as a photograph and Sebastian has added the tree in the foreground to emphasise the feeling of grandness to the landscape. Without that tree the picture would be very different, maybe even average. God, they say, is in the details, something I agreed with on Sunday as I looked at the subtle green stitching on my new brown belt.

But rationalising and using logic, analysing and considering the "rules" of photography are all well and good, perhaps correct and maybe incorrect.

The most important thing is that this picture makes me feel excited, it gives me that real butterfly feeling in my stomach. That's when I know it's a little piece of magical imagery.