Where, a month ago, the Wheel of Manchester still stood, there was today this gymnastic display by a group of energetic ten year-olds. This’ll all be some Olympic games run-up thing. I snapped this one as I went past on my way to the station: luck more than judgment, I can assure you.
I’m in the middle of what is, for me, quite a long run of days without going anywhere in particular. So I have to find photographic succour in Hebden Bridge and Manchester, familiar territory but there’s plenty to see if you look around.
Don’t ask me why it’s being dismantled. It disappeared for a short time a couple of years ago, then turned up back again. Probably there’s a plan to put some big screen TVs up for all the sporting media jubilee overhyped rip-off events going on this summer (sorry, sorry). I bet these guys don’t even know. They just work here. The guy on the left looks utterly bored at spending his working day thirty feet up a ladder spinning a huge wheel around with his hands (well, that’s what they were doing).
This is obviously the place to sit in the evening at the present time – the light is hitting just right for portrait work (see the photo of Mick presented as an alternative option a couple of days ago). I don’t know this couple, but they look real good on this pic. I did show them it after it was taken, and she loved it, he hated that he had been snapped. What that says about them I don’t know. I did tell them I wouldn’t put it on Facebook. Which was a half-truth.
This photo encapsulates the weather we had today: wind, rain and sun. Taken from inside the (heated) waiting room on platform 2 of Todmorden railway station.
Another very strong candidate for photo of the day is on my Facebook page, by the way. Doubtless it will make its way into the next ‘best of the rest’ collection.
Spent the first part of the day on a plane then ambling through the German/Dutch hinterland on suburban trains: the second part of it at the Networked Learning conference in Maastricht, and part of the evening in the building in which the treaty of European Union was signed in 1992. Good photo opportunities today and I took three or four decent portraits of total strangers. This was the best: she looks pretty cool, I think.
I know I did this theme a couple of days ago but there really wasn’t any other photo today which encapsulated what was an absolutely glorious spring day.
Incidentally, those who know the Manchester campus may be bemused as to where this is, because it really must be one of the least green campuses in Britain – there is hardly any green space, plus this bloody big road running right through the middle of it. Trust me however: this is just outside Blackwell’s, under the ramp to the shopping precinct and opposite the Kilburn building.
Beautiful day today, a proper spring Sunday. Lots of activity in the town square, including this busker and then there’s the kid on the right auditioning for his part in the local version of We Need To Talk About Kevin. All fairly normal for Hebden Bridge.
Gosh, a Friday and a Saturday night out in the same weekend. I remember this, it’s called a social life.
I like this shot, particularly the disembodied head lurking to the left. Not bad, considering I’m usually in bed by this time.
James is an archivist at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, a historic public Victorian library in the city centre. I brought my Media & Information Literacy students here today for a ‘field trip’ and was also videoing it for the benefit of my distance learning students. Hence, being able to juggle two cameras simultaneously and get this pic using both, in effect. Who says men can’t multitask, eh?
(I’m back at the Deansgate library tomorrow morning to do some more filming, so no promises, but there may be more. If you’re interested, follow this link to their web site.)
Being 42 