I’ve always enjoyed photography but recently I’ve been in a bit of a rut creatively. Then I bought a Lensball …

Back in the dim and distant days of film cameras, I was just seven when I was entrusted with my first camera (a Kodak Tele-Ektra 32, photo-nerds), sparking an ongoing love of taking photos. I graduated to my first SLR in my teens, my first digital camera in 2003 and my first DSLR two years later.

Nowadays my pride and joy is a Canon EOS70D. This spends 99% of the time sitting in a camera bag while I dash around with my iPhone instead. The vast majority of my photos are quick snaps of the kids as they hare around.

Consequently, I’ve fallen out of practice when it comes to being creative with my photography. You take what you can and there’s no time to properly visualise and compose a great image.

Which is where the Lensball comes in. It is exactly what its name suggests, a small ball of high-grade glass similar to what camera lenses are manufactured from. Placed between a camera and a subject, it creates curved, inverted images that transform the most mundane of images into something magical.

Thus far I have only taken a few experimental shots around the house and wandering round our estate. But even this has been enough to show me its potential as a creative accessory. If photos of the front of our house, a family game of mahjong, Toby reading at bedtime and a random footpath look this good, imagine what the Eiffel Tower or a bridge or the beach at sunset might look like.

All of a sudden whole new vistas have opened up to me. The creative juices are flowing again. And the urge to get out and about with my DSLR has returned. Not bad for what is basically a £20 crystal ball. As investments go, so far this is definitely one of my better ones.

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