Every single London Walk there's at least a couple of cameras clicking away. You get a real gem or two we'd love for you to enter it (or them) in The Great London Walks Photo Competition. And no, we're not being cheap, not trying to get you to do our job for us. We've already got a handsome – and handsomely stocked – portfolio of splendid London photos – some of them shot by guides, some by walkers, some by professionals, some by agency snappers. What we're trying to do is a spot of "knitting together". And a spot of curiosity satisfying. When you're a guide and a walker is snapping away you're always curious, "hmm, wonder what they saw there, what they're getting?"

 

So. The goal – we'll have to see how it goes (and indeed what the costings would come to) – would be to produce a London Walks London calendar. One great London photo per month. We envision putting them up here – or on something like Flickr – and having people tick their favourite. A vote count and hey you've got the Photo of the Month!

 

And, yes, there'd be 13 prizes. One for each month and a grand winner.

 

The monthly prize would be a copy of our book, London Walks, London Stories. (Or if you've already got it – well, the London Walks team is enjoying one of its periodic bouts of astonishing creativity: in the shape, amongst other things, four new books coming out this year. Charles' Aunty's Charley was published a couple of months ago. Rachel's book on Jewish London will be out shortly. As will the "team's" book that draws on the Day Trip strand of our programme. Finally, there's "the world's greatest guide's" [Karen's] book on Royal London, which will be published next spring. So the winner can take her or his pick.)

 

And the Grand Prize? Well, how does this sound? Lunch at the Elizabethan Middle Temple Hall with barrister (and verray, parfit gentil knyght and London Walks guide) Tom. That really is – unless you're a Middle Temple barrister – a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I had my choice between shoving myself outside some vittles in Middle Temple Hall with Tom across the table from me and shovelling it in in the White House with any of them – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Rick Perry, Newt, Michelle, you name it – I'd plump for the former. Every time.

 

Okay, so that's the scoop. Send 'em in and let's see what happens. Maybe to save on bandwidth reduce 'em right down initially. But keep  a full bodied version there on your drive. Because if yours is the one, we're going to be getting back to you asking for same. And please don't deluge us with every single holiday snap you took. You get a cracker of a shot you'll know. That's the one we want to see.

 

And, look, it doesn't have to be a shot of "a London Walk in progress". We hope that most of them won't be that. Rather that they'll in fact be arresting, interesting, extraordinary shots of London generally. Why we do we hope that? Because "a walking tour in progress" is a very very difficult thing to turn into a good photograph. There's too much going on. 20, 25 heads and shoulder sets, the this, that and the the other of a London street generally, the "bit of it" the guide is focussing on – well, that shot is almost always too "busy". There's too much going on. Well nigh impossible to give those "principles of good photography" – fill the screen with your subject, less is more, etc. – their due. And also of course very few walks come into "the magic minute" time light-wise: i.e., dawn or dusk. 

 

A shot of a London Walk "in progress" that does work, I think, is this one. It works because of the "caught moment" – Andy's animation – and especially because of the single, unified backdrop. It draws those 30 or so disparate elements together. Turns lots and lots into a less is more moment.

 

Anyway, be that as it may.

 

So please snap away and send away – to london@walks.com. And for the email subject line – so we can keep track of them – Photo Competition, December. Or Photo Competition, January. Or Photo Competition, February. And so on.