Wednesday 2nd September 2015, 5.10pm (day 1,469)
Overexposed it may be, but in a burst of sudden sunlight today I knew this bunch of people would be today’s picture. No offense, everyone.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Portrait
Me, 4 years on
Tuesday 25th August 2015, 1.40pm (day 1,461)
26th August is my birthday, so today marks the end of the fourth year of this blog. On the day I started it, 26th August 2011, I took a picture of me (and Clare) on a train going down to London, which though it wasn’t The Photo for that day, appears on the ‘About’ page. So you can have a look at it if you like and compare it with this one, taken, also, on a train going down to London. I think I’m weathering OK. I intend to keep the blog going indefinitely… even if its title is now well out of date.
I’ve also added a page which reproduces my favourite 10 photos from years 3 and 4 of the blog.
The Brighton end
Tuesday 18th August 2015, 7.55pm (day 1,454)
The town of Huddersfield has now appeared three times on the blog, each time for the football, though this is the first time the actual stadium has made it. Third game of the 2015-16 Championship season, and rather amazingly, we (Brighton & Hove Albion FC) had won the first two and then scored after only 17 seconds of this game, hence the happy faces on the fans here. (The guy who has busted me taking the photo does make it, I think.) Final result: 1-1 draw, so the happiness faded, a little.
Ilias
Thursday 13th August 2015, 2.20pm (day 1,449)
Ilias is the son of Marilena (behind), who works for me despite living in Corfu — but that’s the online world for you. This was his first visit to England, we met them for lunch in Manchester, and he got to show that he has adopted certain local customs even at his young age. Yia mas!
(Obligatory child protection note: he didn’t drink it, you know.)
Keith prepares the stocks
Sunday 9th August 2015, 3.45pm (day 1,445)
To help with the fundraising aspect of the Kilimanjaro walk (I’ve been raising money for the Calder Valley Search and Rescue team, if you’d like to help), my local, the Railway, had an afternoon of fun and frolics. It was Keith’s idea to set up the stocks (a pound for three throws) — he went in first, therefore. But I did get wet myself…
Cafe, Julius Nyerere Airport
Thursday 6th August 2015, 2.00am (day 1,442)
And so it ends. The last night in Tanzania was spent waiting out a 90-minute flight delay before heading home. I chose this as today’s pic, at least in part, to fill in one of the last two remaining time gaps — this is the first picture to be taken within the hour of 2:00 – 2:59am, now only 5:00 – 5:59 remains undepicted in the near four years of this blog.
So I’ve caught up. Time to go and unpack. I had my priorities right this morning…
Mother and child, Moshi
Tuesday 4th August 2015, 10.00am (day 1,440)
Rest day, spent in Moshi, doing a profound load of nothing. These two just passed by…
Steve at Barafu Camp
Saturday 1st August 2015, 6.10pm (day 1,437)
Barafu camp lies at 4,600m, or about 15,100 feet, and is ‘base camp’ for the final ascent to the summit of Kili, which rises behind this point. One arrives there around lunchtime and is supposed to get some sleep in the afternoon and evening because the final climb is done overnight. But the views are amazing, and I was not the only one defying advice and being up and about later on as the sun went down behind the shoulder of Kibo (and what must be one of the world’s most spectacularly-sited toilets, visible to the right).
At the Kilimanjaro Orphanage, Moshi
Monday 27th July 2015, 9.35am (day 1,432)
The tour company that organised our hike up Kili (Zara Tours) look after their porters and generally seem to support the local community, including this orphanage in Moshi, which we visited while spending a rest day before beginning the hike. I know it’s easy for such pictures to seem exploitative but I hope this one isn’t, it is just meant to represent the fact that although basic I thought this seemed an essentially happy place. Most of the orphans are that way because of HIV, though apparently rates of infection in Tanzania are declining from their peak of a few years ago, which is good news.
Airport hotel bar
Friday 24th July 2015, 9.20pm (day 1,429)
Well, I’m back from Kilimanjaro, and yes I did make the summit, but you will have to wait a short while to see it because I have several hundred photos to get through this morning. No excitement with this first one however, as I waited out a Friday night in one of the massive and anonymous hotels sitting just outside the boundary fence of London’s Heathrow airport. In such places, everyone is just waiting it out, aren’t they, including these three, with the bloke on the right ruminating about how much like Simon Cowell he looks, only without his cash (or why would he be in this hotel?). It will get more interesting… I promise.
