Picture this Lose yourself

You don't need to travel the globe to seek out awesome sights; when you throw away the map, you can find wonder waiting right on your own doorstep, discovers Anita Chaudhuri

- Anita Chaudhuri

"One day, a few weeks back, I got on a train and went on a 90-minute journey from central London to Margate, a seaside town that I have never visited before. I say that as if I escape to other seaside towns regularly that isn't true. It rarely occurs to me to leave London. This is a great pity because, as I soon discovered, there is nothing like going to a new place and getting lost to make you understand the power of looking at the world through fresh eyes.

Taking your camera away from your usual routine, even just for a day trip, can be a brilliant source of fresh visual ideas. In Margate, everything looked different to my tired eyes, fatigued from a seemingly endless London winter and a slow spring. The light, the colours, even the fonts on the shop signs looked intriguing and novel. There was a softness to everything that made me take my camera off auto-focus to try to capture a sense of that dreamy 'other' landscape.