Bob HamiltonI describe myself as an opportunistic photographer. All the images presented here were taken with compact cameras, mostly with a Sony RX100, which is small enough to be slipped into the back pocket of my cycling shirts or get carried in a bum bag whie I'm out running. I rarely leave the house without it. The ready availability of a compact camera means that no opportunity is ever missed. Although this project occasionally involved searching out specific images, my photographs are usually delivered in the course of going about my everyday life, arriving randomly and unexpectedly. I love that element of surprise. My journey as a photographer has been very much one of learning how to see, and a big part of that has been learning how to see in black and white. I can still be surprised at the result of converting a colour image to monochrome in the digital darkroom. Removing the colour helps our eyes to look deeper, to see the patterns in the image rather than simply the subject. It helps us to see below the literal surface of things, into the realm of symbol and metaphor, an evocation of something that's not in the image itself but in our own experience. A colour image is a representation. A black and white image is more akin to a poem. Read More Read Less