The colour of the walls, the angle of the entrance, the canvas on the wall, the shadow on the floor, all attracted me.

What I didn’t know what that I was channelling Mark Rothko because it wasn’t until I went into the room was that it is one of his paintings on that wall.

Tamara and I were walking back from the pharmacy when we saw these men standing by the famous Beatles crossing.

Seeing the red hats, my mind went to ‘repetition’ and I thought it would make a photograph. This is all happening quickly and then I saw the skirts and so I put the camera to my eye and started shooting.

It was not until I opened the file in Photoshop that I saw that the man on the right in the last shot was looking at me. And with a broad smile, and with reflective glasses.

So that’s the shot.

But who are they? I googled the skirts/trousers and it came back “men’s red and black ombre wide-leg trousers, styled similarly to traditional Malay samping over trousers.”. So maybe just maybe there are Malaysian.

In case you are wondering about the stickers on the metal post, this is the Beatles zebra crossing just yards from Abbey Road studios.

The wall in front of the studios is covered in graffiti, so the stickers by the crossing are part of the scene.

When we ran our ecard service, we were always on the lookout for mannequins we could photograph to use for the Almost Human category in the image library.

To bring a mannequin’s face to life I would add catchlights. A dot of white with a brush in Photoshop would do it.

So what are catchlights?

They are the small, bright reflections you see in a subject’s eyes when light hits them. They mirror the light source – a window, the sun, a studio lamp. And given how tiny they are in the total area of the subject, they make a lot of difference in how we perceive a face.

Without catchlights, eyes look flat, dull, lifeless.

Catchlights add depth, energy, and that indefinable presence.

We might not consciously notice them, but we would feel their absence.

The placement and size of a catchlight influences the mood. A large, soft reflection feels gentle and inviting, while a small, sharp one feels intense or dramatic.

Digressing for a moment, I listened to a dog photographer talk about photographing dogs with flash. She said that with breeds have bulging eyes it is important to make sure the catchlight is cut off by the upper lid otherwise the dog will appear manic.

Here are a couple of images to which I added catchlights with Photoshop.

In the second one, notice how the expression is different between the two, depending on where the catchlights are.