One thing I haven’t done with the stats yet is count up the number of photos accounted for by different types of animal. I suspect that over the last 1,953 days, ducks will win, probably just ahead of dogs. Why? Because Hebden Bridge has plenty of them, and look — they’re basically photogenic.
Restarted work today, albeit at home; and herein lies my photographic challenge for the next couple of weeks, as I’m really not doing a great deal else until about January 8th. This will be a very long run of Hebden Bridge pictures on the blog. This ex-guitar caught my eye today — apparently it is about to be customised (I believe the youth of today would say ‘pimped’) as part of Joe’s art homework. I like the shot because it is obviously a guitar, but could take a second glance to determine why it is a dead one.
Last day of my 10-day Christmas break. It was a sunny day, though cold and windy — but still a damn sight better than Boxing Day last year. It seems appropriate to pay some kind of homage to my home town on the first anniversary of the floods which took out 90% of the town centre on 26/12/15, but we seem mostly to be back in operation now. The underlying issues have not been addressed, but let’s hope it doesn’t rain overly hard in the lifetime of the present government.
Never easy to know what to choose to epitomise Christmas Day, particularly when it’s been a fairly uneventful one — though nice, just spent with the family, eating, socialising, etc. The decorations on the dinner table will do as well as anything to represent this… with a guest appearance from Iris the lego lady. A happy Christmas to you all, however you have spent it.
We approach the anniversary of last year’s floods on December 26th, which took out most of Hebden Bridge’s town centre. Prior to that, this place, the Railway pub, had probably featured at least once a month for the four and a half years I’d been doing it, so say about 50 times…. But none since 22/12/15. I think this has been the last of all the businesses in the town to reopen after that day, but here you are…. One year to the day since last we drank there. Welcome back.
While trying not to repeat myself on this blog, sometimes the locations and subject matter will be the same… thus this is much the same as this shot on Boxing Day 2013, poked through the window of my in-laws’ front room. But it doesn’t matter, this shot has a movement to it that I like, despite the black pole separating it into two parts.
“All wind is made by wind farms.” (From Andy Riley, Great Lies to Tell Small Kids)
What these ladies in fancy dress were exactly doing outside the ticket barriers at Piccadilly Station, Manchester, today I am not 100% sure, but they all seemed to be having a good time. It’s nearly Christmas after all — also the winter solstice today, in theory we should be celebrating the turn of the year, it all gets lighter from this point on. In theory…
Went to Southport today so Clare could see her gran, who now resides there. This provided a photo opportunity, melancholy December seaside weather and all that…. Except that calling Southport a ‘seaside town’ only seems to apply at high tide. It has a 1.1km long pier, which Joe and I walked the length of today, and even at the end of it the sea was not actually visible. Talk about a long tidal range.
First day of everyone’s Christmas break, and we spent it indoors watching movies. To give some coherence to this, we ran our own Film Festival, specifically the movies of Rob Reiner, so watched, in order: When Harry Met Sally; The Princess Bride; Stand By Me; This is Spinal Tap; and Misery. Not a bad day’s viewing by any standards. Joe here watches Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan do their bits in the early scenes. Not exciting photography but a good and needed day of relaxation.
