Olympus OM-10, handheld Olympus 50mm 1.4 +4 Diopter Kodak Gold 400 Exposure unrecorded

Up close and personal

It's not often you get a nice collection of delicate little shells arranged on the beach – usually, tidal action crushes them pretty quickly near shore. Whatever the conditions were that left them here, I took advantage of them and got out the close-up diopters, 'filters' that act as magnifiers for inexpensive macro shots. And again, the light was right for it.

You can get some idea of the scale by the grains of sand in the frame. Meanwhile, I'm amazed at getting something this sharp handheld in natural light, something I would never try with what I know now. But this was taken quite a few years ago when I was foolish.