I'm following Joel Meyerowitz's daily photos partly because the photos are great, partly because they appear first thing in the morning. Slightly bleary eyed I read this morning's entry on haiku photography when I realised that this is exactly what I am trying to do, or rather what photography aspires to, and maybe what all great photography is.

My 365 project continues. Here are two photos I took recently by the River Severn, looking at the clouds.

At first glance, Martin Parr's early photos don't look like anything much. None of the pyrotechnics of the later colour work, instead muted sometimes muddy greys. He is no Anselm Adams. But then you see a photo like the one below and you realise you are standing behind the eyes of a master photographer. The exhibition of his early work at Compton Verney, which Sally and I attended in the company of a group of people who could easily be Martin Parr subjects, showed a fully formed vision of the world - precise, spacious, formally beautiful, deeply empathetic, and very humorous. It made me wish that Ted Hughes, born up the road from where the photos were taken, had collaborated with him, as he did with Faye Godwin. I suspect though that Hughes would have been outgunned by the strange and beautiful photos at Compton Verney. The extraordinary portraits of Sarah Hannah Greenwood and her brother Charlie were new to me and worth the trip on their own.