Foreward

I began taking photographs of doors in August 2013. 

It seems a strange subject, perhaps, but I think I started concentrating on doors because some the picturesque streets in which I was walking weren't wide enough to allow a full shots of the beautiful buildings I passed, but in most cases I could collect a snap of the characterful doors! 

Yes, I was first drawn to the truly old doors (and frames) but over time I've realised I'm equally drawn to dilapidated, and graffitied boards if I feel they have a story to tell. And I think most doors do to a certain extent. The age range of my portals span several centuries from the present day (there was a door that had been just being hung as I approached that wins the most up-to-date example) back to a couple of medieval examples that still hang in places where the elements haven't been too unkind to them. 

They could be made of the slickest, shiniest plastic, and all-seeing glass, or the roughest, most weathered wooden slats. Or the doors themselves might be a little bland, but they may be surrounded by the most abstract, elaborate, or stunning frames. I've been known to take the bottom floor of a building, or whole shop-front if I think the story is better told in a door and window context that just by the door alone. 

The difficult part remains the actual photo-taking. I started with my new (at the time) Samsung Galaxy S2 Tab 7.0, which I had bought as a very portable means to be online away from home. My comments to the top left stem from the first time I used it; I was standing on the edge of the pathway a couple of feet from the buildings, holding up the tablet to the walls, when all the other tourists were facing the other way, taking photos of the view, the streets, and perhaps the buildings from farther away. I got more than a few funny looks. 

It's not quite so obvious now that I use a hand-me-down Samsung Galaxy S2 phone, it being much smaller and easier to whip out of a pocket, snap a shot, and slide it away again!

The main problem remains perspective. The nature of the camera is vastly different from 'real' cameras I've used before. (I stopped using my Samsung digital camera because I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting clear pictures. It was later pointed out to me by someone in the know that the lens itself was faulty. I wish I had found that out while it was still under warranty. Never mind.) The flat nature of the tablet and phone, plus the positioning of the camera aperture itself, gives you very real perspective problems if you don't hold it exactly square to the door (or anything you're photographing that has right angles). Hold one corner slightly forward, back, tilt it in any way, and you can find yourself with some strange lines and angles on the finished picture. I still have problems with that now, and although some editing apps can help a little with rotation if you haven't quite got the photo completely horizontal, there's nothing that can help a slight fish-eye effect when it's vertically- or vector-challenged. There's probably technical language to explain that, but, well, I'll let someone not so mathematically illiterate work it out.

Really, all that is to explain that sometimes I get the door absolutely square on, sometimes perspective is a little off because I haven't had the camera lined up exactly vertically opposite the subject. I could invest in a phone tripod, but that seems a little too close to those tragic selfie-sticks I see on tourists, so I'll continue to judge things the best I can by eye until I can afford a good DSLR camera with a legitimate tripod, and hope any occasional angle discrepancy doesn't detract too much from the overall beauty, quirkiness, and character of these wonderful portals!