I'll be the first to admit that the first six months of 2020 have been crazy. If you're reading this in twenty years' time, then you'll probably remember the Covid-19 lockdown. The world closed down, borders were closed and I spent the last three or four months stuck inside shielding myself from the virus-like many others.

The one thing that I gained from this, was how much I missed being out in the great outdoors with my camera, and it reignited my passion for photography, something I had lost before the lockdown. When I was locked down in my house I tried to find things around the house to shoot. I have always been an animal lover and we always buy food for the local wildlife, unfortunately, I live in the middle of a small town, so the wildlife isn't that exciting. We get Pigeons, a couple of visiting Robins and a load of common sparrows. I am lucky that I live not far from the Sankey Valley Canal, which is a historic local canal built around the 1750s and is home to some great wildlife.

In my garden, I have a few local birds that return quite often. I have a couple of Robins that visit every day, they seem to know when I have the camera out, they are there when I look through the window, gone when I get the camera out. Sod's Law as it's known locally. So I'd like to introduce you to Fred and Doris. They are like the old couple you see down the street. There are days when they love each other and days when they fall out, but you'll always find them together. On this day, they were getting a little amorous and it was fun to see. I was really into negative space at the time and I was treated to a clear blue sky, so this worked with this image. It was a simple image that really worked with the negative space and the simple blue sky. Who says blue sky photography is boring? It even got a mention in the Wex Photos WexMondays competition. I didn't think it was a great image, but it seemed to get some love from people, it's always good to get a bit of recognition.

.@mikechesworth brings us this shot making fantastic use of negative space and a couple of pigeons in love. Shortlisted! #WexMondays https://pic.twitter.com/qH9UTl6SIK

— Wex Photo Video (@wextweets) April 28, 2020

So, onto the settings. There is nothing special here. This was taken on my Olympus EM1ii with my 40-150 F4-F5.6 lens, at the full 150mm focal length. It was a fast shutter speed of 1/1600 at F5.6. I had to use a quick shutter speed because they tend to move when you point the camera at them. It's a split-second thing.

I'm really loving this image and has to be my favourite image I have taken this year. It's always nice to have a great story behind an image.