A final hour or so to get some shots of Newcastle as we made our way back to the station. This has gone monochrome for one simple reason: to get rid of the bright blue monstrosity that was the wheelie bin in the middle. Tell me you don’t see it, even now I’ve pointed it out.
The town of Doncaster has never seemed all that exciting a place to me, but it does have some decent public art: see this mural, for instance, which I pictured on a previous visit and nearly did again, today. Then there is this memorial, which is obviously for some aspect of the coal mining industry (the main statue is clearly a miner, and there are names of collieries on plaques around the base), is impressive, but, I think, also slightly creepy — there’s a ‘buried alive’ thing going on. Although maybe that’s exactly the point.
There are some days when I really can’t think of any caption or explanation for posting a photo beyond the fact that I just quite like it. Daisy Hill is a place (in the Wigan-Bolton hinterland) with a cute rustic name, but its railway station doesn’t follow this lead — at least, not while some renovations are going on.
The sun is still shining. A few attics need airing, skylights need opening. Ours too — this photo was taken by sticking my head out of the roof.
Brighton still hangs on to its place in the top 10 of ‘Most Depicted Locations’ on this blog, but its rate of appearance has declined in recent years, for various reasons. I came for a couple of days in 2022, but that has been it since 2018. However, here we are, back again for the last burst of the summer holiday down South. The Pavilion was built by King George IV when he was Prince Regent, and really is one of the tackiest palaces anywhere on the planet, particularly inside. But nowadays it’s part of the fabric, and is one of those unique buildings that instantly identifies the location of a shot.
He’s just discovered running. Which means he’s discovering the pleasure of chasing things. The gull will tolerate it for now: revenge will come later, when the kid’s chips get stolen.
This cameo played out in the grounds of Carisbrooke Castle, in the centre of the Isle of Wight — worth a visit, if you want a recommendation. It was the place that Clare and I saw out much of our silver wedding anniversary: we were married on 2nd July 1999, and have made it this far, at least.
I have nothing against the Chelsea Hotel in Toronto — if I had I would not have come back here to stay for another two weeks, on top of the time I spent here earlier in the year. But I would like to go home now, and instead, I ended up for various reasons obliged to spent almost the entire day locked in my room, working. This semi-abstract architectural shot — one wing’s worth of floors 14-27 I reckon –thereby epitomises the day. A photowhack too, meaning, the only shot taken today.
I have mentioned before that there are many murals adorning the walls of buildings in Toronto, and this is at least the third to feature on here, mounting up at a rate of one per trip. I do hope this isn’t my last visit to the city — though we will see — should I return, though, there are plenty more to document yet.
The first concealed round number of the day: today I am exactly 20,000 days old. When I first saw the Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth (it’s very good and worth watching even if you have no idea who Nick Cave is) I naturally worked out when I would reach this milestone, and, well, it’s today. In my case 20,000 days works out at 54 years, 9 months and 3 days.
The second concealed round number is that this is the 100th blog pic to be taken in Scotland. This last week has seen the country overtake Norway in the all-time table to now stand third, behind only England and Australia. To mark this, let’s feature Joe, and behind him, Dundee — the juxtaposition of person and place being the principal reason that Scotland has kept up its healthy rate of appearance over the last three years (Dundee features on 24 of those 100 shots).
The diorama of Dundee was created by photographer Sohei Nishino, and is a remarkably good piece of work which gives a totally new perspective on the place and which one can lose oneself in: both characteristics of great art, if you ask me. And according to this article about it, it used 20,000 photos. Back to the first concealed round number we go. It must mean something.
One wonders if the social and economic landscape of St Helena would be different had it been run more often in its history by St Helenians. In the centuries since it was formally colonised, only two of the many Governors have been born on the island, and it’s perhaps significant that one of these, Hudson Janisch gets himself by far the most impressive memorial of any Governor. On the lowest level of this three-tier stone (not pictured) is inscribed: “This monument is erected by the inhabitants to commemorate the high respect and esteem in which their late Governor was universally held.” As a memorial, that’s pretty good, I think.
Being 42 