How would you describe your photography in a single sentence? Maybe just a single word, even? A few years ago my friend Simon Wootton – letting his mouth get ahead of his thoughts – said that my photographs were “like snapshots, but the light is better”. I think he regretted it immediately, because he quickly added “I mean that as a compliment”.

Thank you Simon. Seriously. Because that sentence captures how I feel about my photography, and describes it far better that I ever could have.

Some people shoot landscapes, or wildlife, or sports, or news. And quite a lot of people shoot snapshots, so let’s celebrate that by taking the best snapshots we possibly can.

Which brings me on to this photograph of San Giorgio Maggiore from St Mark’s Square in Venice – the gondolas gently bobbing in the foreground. It’s a photo that’s been taken a million times, and I’m not naïve enough to think that I can add anything to it, But I was on holiday, I wanted to take the best photograph that I possibly could, and so I slipped out of the hotel pre-dawn to make my way to St Mark’s Square.

Yes, Venice really is at its best in the early morning, before the tourists all get up. I had the square to myself – well, me and a few street-cleaners in their high-vis jackets. I wandered over towards the Grand Canal and – leaning against a lamppost to stabilise myself in the half-dark – shot off half a dozen frames of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Later in the day, many thousands of tourists would stop beside the Doge’s Palace to take the same photo, but mine was already in the bag. Like a snapshot – but the light was better.