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.
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.
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.
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.
1,092 days ago, on September 4th 2011, I photographed this same event — it was day 10 of the blog. As then, I pictured it at the stonemason’s yard which resides on the canal, near Hebden Bridge station. With all other things being equal then you could check back if you like to see if my technique has improved at all over these three years of ample practice. Personally, I think it has; a bit. More than my running, anyway.
Following the visit to the Vatican a few weeks back, here I am in another of the world’s great museums. Specfically, the Ancient Egyptian room on the ground floor, home to the Rosetta Stone and various other famous relics. I like this shot simply because of the light. It might be better without the little explanatory squares of text, but what can you do.
After a day working in Manchester, which did not succeed in inspiring me, I came home via the usual haunt and, frankly, just started pissing about with the camera. But I quite like this one. Maybe it’d be better without the pole growing from the guy’s head, but then again it also gives it that little extra surreal touch.
This is also how I felt this morning after our night out in Liverpool. I hope this woman didn’t miss her train — she was asleep in the cafe at the railway station for some time.
Being 42 