Nick Miners Photography

I’ve been to loads of places in 2010, as reg­u­lar fol­low­ers of this blog will be aware. Here, for those who are new, and any­one else who might be inter­ested, is a selec­tion of shots from each of the coun­tries, cit­ies and counties I’ve been lucky enough to visit.

A Bel­gian couple pose for the cam­era out­side the Con­cert Hall in Bruges.

One of the most strik­ing aspects of my recent trip to Bruges with my friend Mark was the markedly dif­fer­ent atti­tude to pho­to­graph­ers that we exper­i­enced com­pared to that in the UK. You can’t open the paper these days without read­ing about yet another pho­to­grapher being har­assed by police for tak­ing (legit­im­ate) pho­to­graphs in a (pub­lic) loc­a­tion. How­ever in Bruges, des­pite the fact that the major­ity of people walk­ing about were tour­ists tak­ing pho­to­graphs, the loc­als appeared to act­ively wel­come the chance to appear in a pho­to­graph (see above). We both felt that we were free to go wherever we pleased, whenever we pleased, even as far as the indus­trial docks to the north of the city where pho­to­graph­ers with large lenses in the UK would prob­ably be accos­ted by offi­cious staff or police almost as soon as they stepped on the premises. Wan­der­ing round the streets and canals at mid­night has never been so much fun.

Whilst I don’t want to use my blog to make polit­ical points, the Con­ser­vat­ive party did prom­ise prior to the elec­tion to stop the abuse of stop-​​and-​​search powers gran­ted to police under sec­tion 44 of the Ter­ror­ism Act, and the newly pub­lished coali­tion agree­ment also makes the same prom­ise. I will be watch­ing closely and hope­fully we will see an end to the non­sense that inno­cent pho­to­graph­ers have been sub­jec­ted to for far too long.

As I write, I’m about to check out of the Hotel Notre Dame in Mari­as­traat in the his­toric Bel­gian city of Bruges. The city (Brugge in Flem­ish) used to be an import­ant hub of trans-​​European trade until its port sil­ted up in the middle of the 16^th Cen­tury, but it has retained many of its medi­eval build­ings and all of its charm. Prob­ably unfairly, Bel­gium isn’t top of the list for many vis­it­ors to main­land Europe, but Bruges is cer­tainly one of the most beau­ti­ful and friendly cit­ies I’ve vis­ited. Here is a selec­tion of some of my pho­tos of the many faces of this won­der­ful little place.

My friend and fel­low pho­to­grapher Mark Casey will have his pho­tos online soon. I will link to them here when they’re online.

UPDATE: They’re up. Please go here.