The Orange Beach Umbrella

Even though it is cold and raining outside I close my eyes and I am lying down on a deck chair in the Thai island of Koh Samui feeling the soft breeze in my face and looking at this wonderful turquoise sea under an orange beach umbrella.

This colourful umbrella takes me back to those idle summer days by the coast.The bright orange reminds me of the robes of the monks in the Buddhist temples and makes me feel at peace.

That umbrella is what the writer Roland Barthes in his book Camera Lucida, called the "punctum" of a photograph, an element that rises from the scene and strikes a chord in the viewer.