I’ve always loved a good self imposed constraint. It stops you hunting for the "hero shot" and forces you to actually see what’s right in front of you.
After spotting a post on BlueSky this morning from photographer Rob Knight (@rkphotographic.bsky.social) where he outlined the 20:20:20 challenge he sets for workshop participants, I was keen to give it a spin. The rules are simple: twenty photos, taken within a twenty foot radius, in twenty minutes. I decided to pair it with the 10 minutes from home constraint.
No wandering, no hunting for fresh scenery, and definitely no tripod. Just planting my boots down by the water’s edge along the quayside and making that tight footprint work.
Heading down to the river, the waterfront offered a brilliant mix of industrial textures, marine geometry, and low angled sunlight. What surprised me most was how quickly the obvious compositions vanished. Once you’ve framed the water and the immediate horizon in the first few minutes, the remaining time forces your eye down to the micro-level:
Tactile details: Coarse, fraying mooring rope, wet timber grain, and moss clinging to timber slipways.
Hidden history: A carved stone benchmark resting right against the water's edge, and an iron star plate flush with the quayside paving.
Graphic shapes: Hard, angular shadows across steel beams, heavy rusted shackle pins, and iron chain links stretching across cobbles.
It’s a fantastic exercise in spatial awareness. You stop looking at a location and start looking into it.
