I initially shot Lemons, Lantern and Stromboli on film in 1996. I envisaged it to be a pair with my “Lemons, Bottle and Stromboli” image which I had taken the previous year. The images work perfectly as a pair and in fact many collectors have bought both of these images together. I am pleased to say that this image has proven over the years to have been one of my most popular and best loved images.

My inspiration for Lemons, Lantern and Stromboli were the luscious colours, along with the textures and contrasts of light The yellow forms and tones of the lantern and the lemons are in balance each other, with the fulcrum being the conical and perfectly symmetrical shape of Stromboli on the horizon. The streaky clouds add interest and dynamism to the otherwise pure, unadulterated blue of the Mediterranean sky. See more of this series in my Aeolian Still Lifes gallery.

I used my trusty Hasselblad 500C/M camera for this image, with the superlative Zeiss Sonnar 150mm lens. This is the camera used on the Apollo space missions for those iconic Moon landing images! It houses a square format 6 x 6cm film, over 4 times larger than traditional 35mm film size, therefore giving the resulting images incredible quality of fine detail and richness of colour. Something I love and try to replicate today using mirrorless digital cameras by my preferred use of tilt shift lenses.

I was awarded the special prize for photography for this image at the SAAC exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh in 1996. Something I am very proud of!