📙 Part 2: Describe a place where you have taken photos more than once

You should say: where the place is, when you took the photos, what special features the photos taken there have, and explain why you have been there more than once to take photos.

This episode's vocabulary

• To serve (verb) - to work for; to do your duty to.
• Reasonably (adverb) - in a satisfactory way.
• Well-kept (adj.) - clean, tidy, and cared for.
• Sheltered (adj.) - protected from wind, rain, or other bad weather.
• To batter (verb) - to hit something with force many times.
• Captivating (adj.) - holding your attention by being extremely interesting, exciting, pleasant, or attractive.
• To do justice to someone/something (idiom) - to treat someone or something in a way that is fair and shows their or its true qualities.
• To be better off (phrase) - to be in a better situation, if or after something happens.
• Cityscape (noun) - a view or image of a city.
• Rural (adj.) - in, of, or like the countryside.
• Photogenic (adj.) - having an appearance that is attractive in photographs.

Questions and Answers

R: Well, I really like taking photos when I'm down at the beach in my hometown, I feel like I do it every time I'm there, actually, even though it never changes, and if it did, I would know, since I'm there every week for wild swimming or walks or actually both. To be more specific, the place we go is next to a place called Brodie Castle, which is an old medieval castle in Dundee, my hometown, it serves as a museum now, which means it's reasonably well-kept. And you can walk around and take nice pictures, whatever the weather. Because it's sheltered by the castle grounds, the beach is great to go to and you can enjoy the sunshine there without being absolutely battered by the wind on most days. And you could take photographs without being blown around or having to narrow your eyes because there might be sand in them. Every time I go there for wild swimming, we always get a photo together on the beach of all of us inside and outside of the water, sort of like a before and after of freezing to death. You can almost always see the castle and the sand where it meets the shoreline. Usually, despite the fact we're in Scotland, the skies are clear too, which makes the water sparkle. It looks quite captivating, though, photographs don't really do it justice, to be honest with you, you're better off being there in person. Even if I didn't go swimming there, I'd always make a point of taking a photo, whether it's during the day or at sunrise or sunset, because the stretches of sand always look so beautiful, and you can get a great view of the cityscape on one side of the river and the countryside on the other sites because we border, the urban area where I live borders more rural area directly opposite on the other bank. It's quite photogenic, and I'm sure if other people went there, they would be very happy to agree with me.

M: And how often do you visit this place?

R: Well, like I said, about once a week, if I can.

Discussion

M: Super! Thank you, Rory, for your story! Dear listener, do you like this topic? Huh? Yes, no? So you should describe a place, you went there and you took photos. And you, for example, went there once, and then you came back and took photos again. Okay? So maybe you went to the park alone, you took photos, and then you brought your friend there. Okay? It could be any place, a cafe, maybe someone's place, okay? Maybe your friend has a house. You went there several times, and you took photos of yourself. You took a selfie. You took photos of other people, okay? Yeah. So Rory told us about a place in his hometown.

R: Where would you choose, Maria?

M: Altai. There's this place of power in my country, with beautiful mountains and rivers and the waterfalls, and interesting people, beautiful, amazing nature. And I went there twice, and I took millions of millions of photos. And you can start off with, I really like taking photos. So, dear listener, take photos. We don't make photos. No, no, no, no, no. Take photos. And I enjoy taking photos when I'm down at the beach. I'm down at the beach means when I'm at the beach. But Rory is a super native speaker, so he speaks in a very natural way. I'm down at the beach, you know, in my hometown, I enjoy taking photos on the beach. I feel like I do it every time I'm there. Like I feel like I do it all the time. I feel like it, okay? You can say that I'm there every week or every month for swimming. I'm there for walking. I'm there for having fun. I'm there for drinking.

R: I'm there to take lots of pictures, apparently.

M: Yes, yeah. You can imagine that you are a photographer, dear listener. Okay? To be more specific, when you want to give more details or you move to a different topic, you say, to be more specific, the place we go is next to my house, is next to the river, or is near the river, or it's in the forest, it's in the park, it's in the centre of the city. So where it is. As we know, Rory lives in the middle of Scotland, I mean, in the middle of nowhere.

R: Those are the same thing.

M: So he told us about this medieval castle in Dundee, a castle. Rory is Scottish, remember, yeah? So castles and ghosts.

R: Castles are everywhere. Ghosts, not so much. However, it was a castle, but it serves as a museum, which means its job now is a museum. So a place can serve a purpose, or a person can serve a purpose. Is serve a purpose a collocation? I feel like it should be.

M: Yeah. Or, for example, like a cafe serves as a library. Okay? You can take books from this cafe, for example. It is a well-kept place. So if people take care of it, if they keep it in good condition, you can say it's a well-kept place. It's nice to walk around, okay? A phrasal verb. To walk around. It's nice to take beautiful pictures. What did you mean when you said to be battered by the wind?

R: Well, that just means that there's so much wind that it's like throwing you around.

M: So you can say, ooh, it's really windy. I was battered by the wind. Like, super windy. Every time I go there, I take a selfie, or I take a lot of photos or lots of photos. Or we always get a photo together on the beach, okay? With your friends or with your family, like we always get a group photo and a photo of all of us, like a photo of my friends, a photo of my family. You can also say a picture, a picture, a photo. And I really enjoyed this part. Rory told us about the wild swimming he does. You know, like, he goes into the river, it's freezing cold, and he just swims there in a wild kind of way. Like...

R: No, it's called wild swimming, because you're outdoors, not indoor.

M: Yeah, and Rory said, like, we take a photo before and after of freezing to death because, like, the water is cold.

R: Yes, I shouldn't have said that, because it's not that bad. People behave like it is that bad, but it's not.

M: Yeah. Can you imagine, like, Scotland, freezing water, a cold river? Ah, Rory is crazy. Rory is wild and crazy.

R: As opposed to Maria, who goes walking in places with bears and into volcanoes, completely normal human behaviour, of course.

M: Yeah, flies helicopters, but Maria usually doesn't go into freezing cold water. Maybe after the sauna. And you can say that from this place, you can see the castle, you can see the sea, you can see water, mountains. So like what can you see? You can see beautiful landscapes, nature, beautiful nature, picturesque nature you can say, like beautiful. You can see clear skies. Or like the sky is blue, yeah? So you can say the skies are clear, okay? Which means that the sky is clear, like no clouds. And it looks quite captivating. So if it is captivating, it's what?

R: It holds your attention, it captures your interest.

M: Yeah, like captivating photographs, photos, pictures. It looks captivating to be there. I take captivating photos. To wrap it up, we can use a conditional. If I didn't go there, I would, I'd take a photo of another place. Okay? The second conditional. So we're imagining that, oh, okay, so if I didn't go there, I'd go to the park and take a photo of birds.

R: But you could also use it to emphasize what you would do there while you are taking the picture. So even, I said even if I didn't go swimming there, even if I didn't go walking there, even if I didn't go for a stroll there, I'd always make a point of taking a photo. Make a point - put a special focus on something.

M: You can also say, I enjoy taking photos during the day. I enjoy taking photos at sunrise. You know? Early in the morning, when the sun rises. So I usually take photos at sunrise. Or when the sun sets in the evening. I enjoy taking photos at sunset, or I enjoy beautiful sunsets. I always want to catch beautiful sunsets or take a photo of amazing sunsets. If you are in the city, you can say that I enjoy taking photos of the cityscape. In the country, we have landscapes and nature.

R: Yeah, we don't have the countryscape.

M: Countryscape. Yeah. Landscape. But in the city, the cityscape with skyscrapers, beautiful houses or ugly houses. And photogenic is a very nice adjective. What does it mean? Photogenic?

R: I think it just means that it looks nice for photographs.

M: Yeah, photogenic.

R: I'd say photogenic, yeah.

M: If I am photogenic, I have a face that looks attractive in photos. Okay? Yeah, and you say, I look good in photos, dear listener, in photographs. Could you give us a sentence?

R: Well, other than the one you gave? I am not very photogenic, I do not look good in photographs.

M: Yeah. And what about a place? So a place can also be photogenic, right?

R: The beach is photogenic. The cityscape is quite photogenic. Some parts are less photogenic than others because we have a homeless problem.

M: Yeah. And you can start off with like, oh, I really like taking photos in a park close to my house, because it's a really photogenic place. Hey! And then you say, captivating and beautiful and what... Gorgeous landscapes.

R: Magnificent.

M: Magnificent.

R: Yeah, lots of beautiful adjectives. Right, dear listener, make your decision now. What place will you be talking about? Okay? Yeah, choose something simple. A park.

R: A beach, a city, a city centre, a street.

M: Exactly. Maybe you take photos of tourists, who visit your place. I don't know.

R: Do people do that?

M: Yeah, you know, like if you walk around the city centre and people just ask you, oh, can you take a photo of us? Sure. And you take like 10 photos of them.

R: Oh, my God, can I tell a different story now?

M: Yes.

R: Because I just realized, when I was in Oxford, we were with one of the classes, and we'd just been on this tour of a museum, and we were standing outside waiting for all the kids to line up and get ready to go home, and this group of Chinese tourists came up to us and said, Could you please move? We are going to take a picture. And I said, well, we could move, or we could all be in your picture. So there is now this magnificent picture of this Chinese school group mixed in with this class of kids from Germany and Argentina and Japan, and they're all smiling at the camera, holding up the banner of this Chinese school. It is absolutely amazing, and I think it was the funniest thing I've done all summer.

M: Aw, that's really cute.

R: So yes, outside a museum, inside a museum.

M: Thank you very much for listening! And we'll get back to you in our next episode about photography! Bye!

R: Bye!

Make sure to subscribe to our social media to see some of the “behind the scenes” stuff:

Our Instagram: bit.ly/instagramswi

Our Telegram: bit.ly/telegramswi