Playing with placing has long been a passion. As a child I would climb the shelves of my yellow wardrobe – complete with painted 70’s orange flowers – and sit on top to read. The danger of it toppling never occurred to me. It was pleasing both to read from there, and to glance around the room from superhuman height. I could see more of the garden through the window, if less of the skyline.

Staying in one place was never a realistic option for this world thirsty explorer, although I can only count a modest 7 different places to have lived in 6 times the number of years. I am graciously allowing myself the inclusion of 4 months in Bolivia in my late teens.

Privileged to be at the launch of the space shuttle Columbia from Kennedy Space Centre, Florida in 1981, I had no idea at the time of the significance of seeing such a feat, still reeling myself from surviving my own first transatlantic flight. A related visit to Cape Canaveral led to the compulsory tourist photo of my sister and I holding up rockets, as dad turned us momentarily into Superwomen. Who would have thought we had that kind of strength or would have been trusted with such a degree of responsibility. You wouldn’t want to drop a rocket.

Enthralled in my teens by a passage from a book where a child explores a jagged broken railing, seeing within it a whole cityscape, my love of perspective was set. Different eyes on familiar places give new perspectives. Different places do the same. As does a re-placement of subjects. A flower can dwarf the Vendee’s setting sun. Giants can emerge from people who are significantly less blessed with height than their friends. Wardrobes or cameras, re-placement makes me tall.

Next time you take a photo, try subverting it. Turn the flower into an enormous people-eating plant. Dwarf yourself or another. Turn the marble into a planet. Next time you read a book, do so from an unconventional vantage point. Play with placing, and as you do, contemplate the value of seeing with new eyes, of seeing other than what we readily assume is the norm. For really, there are no norms, but there is much to imagine, if we will only place ourselves, with new eyes, where we will be stretched, and free to wonder.