It was a brave thing to do, photography in the British weather in January! Chess is much more predictable ...

From the beginning, it did not augur well. Naturally it gets dark quite quickly at this time of year, so the aim was to get the boys out taking pictures, and then do the theory. The steady and sometimes quite heavy rain seemed impossible. However, I sent them out! 

They shared one decent SLR digital camera between two, so there are two names below the pictures - I have no idea who took each one.

After taking the photographs we checked them on the computer. We looked at the 'wow' factor, an indefinable something which, perhaps unsurprisingly, makes you go 'wow'!

We then looked at the work of Martin Parr, who just took pictures of ordinary life with fantastic technique. He is a member of the Magnum photo agency, elected by just one vote, after considerable acrimony: he is not a typical Magnum photographer.

Here are the boys' pictures, in no particular order. I was impressed that after a few seconds' advice they are getting high and low to take photos.