If it’s the conference dinner, wheel out the folk dancers…. I sometimes wonder whether we should do this kind of thing with conferences in Manchester. You could take the delegates into a local nightclub, pour them blue WKDs and let them photograph the natives as they get down to it on a Friday night.
Moscow was the destination of yesterday’s flight. I came here to attend this event, a forum involving some of the world’s greatest and most innovative educational thinkers, plus me. And this little darling, in the arm of her father Pavel, one of the organisers. What is she pointing at? The red rectangle which appears to be growing out of his arm? More likely the other delegate’s lunch. Don’t get used to pictures of Moscow — I’m flying home again tomorrow, though I am back here in two weeks.
I was also here on Monday but blew my opportunity for a decent photo of it, so today gave me a second chance. Recently re-opened after what seems like years of renovation this is a classic, great, domed library reading room: too big, really, to get a photo of in its entirety, so today I tried a more intimate portrait. It’s great that I have had the chance to work in this excellent space this week, but then again, so has everyone else — for now, it’s open free to the public, you can just walk in. It’s called a public good, Mr. Cameron.
The biannual trip to the tooth doctor is usually good for a pic — if only because it’s a well-lit activity. This is at least the second time Joe has been pictured mid-examination and I think I got one of myself in once, too. The next visit is in March, if you notice this kind of thing.
Høgskolen i Bergen has spent all week celebrating the opening of its new campus. Today the library was officially opened, with, among other things, talks and seminars (including one by yours truly) and then the rather more interesting spectacle of tango dancers among the bookshelves. The lighting was not really suitable to get one of them in motion (although perhaps I am more apologising for my deficiencies as a photographer) but I like this one of three of them just before they got going. There may well be another picture of the evening tomorrow as I got some decent ones of the band after midnight, but let’s see if the journey home gives rise to any decent candidates, before I decide.
Tough assignment today. Working at home on a flat, grey day. So little to inspire that I was reduced to this attempt at an original self-portrait, which is OK I guess.
There is nothing to admire technically or aesthetically about this picture but this is one of those occasions where it makes it onto this blog because it truly encapsulates the day and tells a story. Back at the turn of the millennium I wrote my PhD on the work of this guy, Jürgen Habermas, who I — and a lot of other people — would say is the world’s greatest living political theorist. Largely through coincidence he was giving a public lecture in Stavanger this week when I happened to be here, so I got the chance, after all this time, not just to hear him talk but meet him and question him on his work. The musical equivalent (for me) would be to, say, have turned up somewhere random and found Ian Curtis or Jello Biafra giving a gig (and the former has been dead for 34 years). And another thing — Habermas is 85 years old but is also a brilliant advert for never ever retiring, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone his age who’s so hale and mentally alert, and also still obviously gives a crap about everything. Yes, we can say that today, I met one of the heroes of my life and was certainly not disappointed. Not bad for a Thursday.
Spectacularly gorgeous day today in Stavanger, as nice a day of weather as I’ve experienced anywhere. I was not the only one thinking that the best way to end the working day was to sit outside in the sun and enjoy a beer. Taken outside the ‘Dickens’ pub (so called because Charles Dickens was not Norwegian and probably never came to Stavanger in his life).
I have been at a conference at my alma mater, the University of Leeds, these last couple of days. These guys are obviously happy to be here too. I wonder how the photographer’s shot compares to this one.
It began in 1964. The prison camp in the Urals, when chess was their only distraction, and they could suck the damp off the pieces to stay alive. Igor (on the left in this shot) was a double agent; his opponent, still known only by the codename “King’s Pawn”, had been picked up trying to infiltrate Tomsk dressed as a Mongolian sheep herder. The Cold War thawed and half a century later they still meet once a week on this field of combat, speaking only rarely, but both with an inner shiver as they recall the white hell of February in the Petropavlavravmavstok encampment.
