For a street with a pretty grand name in the centre of one of the larger cities in Britain, St. James’ Street is a rather pokey back alley. I like here the gang of urban pigeons to bottom left — the random chair — and the “Lewis Bet” sign, if that’s not a seedy backroom bookie’s I don’t know what might be.
Windsor Road, Hebden Bridge. This is fairly typical for round here. I like the way the colours of the window frames change from house to house, and also from the top floors to the bottom — for these will all be two separate houses, one on top and one underneath.
Today was Joe’s bithrday. Amazingly, I seem to as of today be the parent of a teenager. Yet it was a win-win situation for him, because almost the first thing that happened today was that we got the phone call telling us it was a snow day, thus a day off school. But he didn’t lie around doing nothing — I took him into Manchester instead, where it was just as revoltingly snowy.
Perhaps it’s a political statement. Perhaps it’s a metaphor for someone’s life: perhaps my own. Perhaps it’s just a picture of a car park barrier. Your call.
Well… there’s blossom. You can see it. But that’s the bloody British weather for you. The snow was all gone by lunchtime.
Still, I am not complaining about this photographically. This is the first picture I’ve taken in ages that I really like: one where I knew as soon as I pressed the shutter that it would be today’s pick.
Regency Square was first laid out in the early 1800s and was one of the first sea-front housing developments in Britain with social cachet; until that time the upper classes wouldn’t have dreamed of living near the sea, which was full of smelly fisherman types. But it was a success and became the template for many similar British seaside towns since.
What the Georgians would have made of the 450-feet-high tower that has sprung up at the end since last I was here, I have no idea. It’s nicely corporate, being sponsored by British Airways, for no immediately obvious reason, and is to become the “tallest moving observation platform in Europe”, or something. At least it will be until someone else builds a bigger one, which may turn out to be equally pointless and intrusive. I’m not a conservative — surely anyone following this blog can see that — so I’ll judge anything new on its merits. At the moment, I just can’t see that this has any.
Yesterday, did I mention signs of spring? Here’s another one. The sun officially clocked returning to the front of the house, after four months of being hidden behind the hill every morning. I depicted this, with a different shot, back in February 2014, (Feb 21st in that case), but it’s a notable day every year.
The big question is, of course — if not in the red van, then where? Inquiring minds want to know.
Sometimes you don’t even realise you’ve got the shot until it’s been sitting on your camera all day then you upload it. This was just a general scene but once I saw how glorious her hair was she became its obvious subject. Had to crop it down a lot, hence its loss of sharpness and increased grain — but that’s then helped by going monochrome.
Still occasionally to be seen on small, provincial British railways. This monster bombed through Hebden Bridge station slightly in advance of the 8:05 to Manchester, headed for unknown places.
Being 42 