THESE days if you want to take a photo you just pull out your smart phone and tap the screen.

Our digital era means we can easily store hundreds of pictures and that is often taken for granted.

Well now the winner of Warrington Contemporary Arts open competition is hoping to bring some of the romance back to photography with his exhibition, One, at The Gallery at Bank Quay House.

Robert Watson, from Latchford, travelled the country to iconic photography locations with his large format Sinar P2 camera for a series of one-off or limited 8 by 10ins images.

The 49-year-old said: "The thing about photography is if someone loses a picture they print another one out. But the images in this exhibition are like Polaroid taken by that big camera. It’s a photograph but if you lose it, it’s gone."

The project took Robert to the National Theatre and Millennium Bridge in London, Northumberland, Llanberis, Preston and Liverpool.

Closer to home he captured the Manchester Ship Canal in Warrington.

Because the pictures are so big he has a machine at home that uses chemicals to allow the one-off prints to develop. That required a lot of commitment and patience as the process often led to imperfections.

Robert, a former Appleton Hall student, added: "You don’t know what you’ve got until you get home. You don’t know if it’s worked but that’s part of the joy of it."

One is The Gallery at Bank Quay House's last exhibition and runs until August 31.