*locked*

It's a funny old thing, photography. This shot, believe it or not, is one of the most difficult I have ever taken. It took no less than thirty-eight attempts over three days, using three different lenses, all three metering options and every exposure variant my knowledge bank allowed for. To say I became a little obsessed trying to capture it is a bit of an understatement. The shot kept beating me, you see. I couldn't work out how to expose it properly. I still don't think I succeeded as the right hand side of the padlock is shining away like a...erm...shiny padlock that hasn't been exposed properly. If anyone would like to enlighten me as to what I should have been doing, please feel free.

The shot itself is of a confectionary booth that sits on one of the busiest roads in Maadi. At one point in my attempt to get the shot, no less than seven men stood staring at me. One, wearing a uniform of some sort and with a little bit of dribble hanging from his slightly agape mouth, seemed particularly interested, so I gave him a Blipcard, which he stared at with the same puzzlement he was staring at me with moments earlier.

So, Mr Starey Man, assuming you can read, have access to a computer with an internet connection, and know what a www address is, here it is. It's a padlock. Against a bit of wood. Why did I take a picture of this? Well, not, as I suspect you think, to provide intelligence to terrorists hell-bent on destroying confectionary booths in Maadi, but rather, and indeed simply because, the padlock is yellow and the wood is blue. That's all it took to catch my eye. Why did I keep coming back? Another good question, for which the answer is somewhere in my first paragraph. I think.