Am I making a political point? Well…. not as strongly as I certainly would have twenty years ago, and probably would have ten years ago. But it is May 1st, International Labour Day and all that, and at least this party don’t have plans to abolish it, like the other lot of moronocrats. Vote L…. well, just vote, is all.
Is he engaging in some Japanese-style blossom worship? (You see Japan — we have blossom too….) Or just clambering along a precarious wall, as small boys do to entertain themselves and worry their parents?
Even if the Chinese Arch is visible, almost side-on, in the background. I don’t know if this is a photo of anything. I don’t think I’ve been taking photos of specific things over the last few days. This is more about colours, shapes, textures. Maybe that’s where my head is.
A decent run of morning shots in recent weekdays. I like this shot because of the general yellowness but then contrasted with the blue of the woman, and the lines up the middle and across the bottom. Composition then, I guess.
I’ve given up trying to reliably identify whether the birds in any given shot are crows, jackdaws, rooks, whatever. Either way, they were swooping over the roof of my house in a rather sinister manner this morning. The superstitious might like to note there are 13 of them in shot…
Definitely one of those days where I was glad there was some half-decent light on my brief foray out of the house this morning, as once I got back at about 9.30 I then stayed in all day teaching online. This window is a feature of the large mill that sits in Hebden Bridge town centre and is known — without much originality — as Hebden Bridge Mill. The new year’s foliage is just coming to bud. I seem to be having a run of square pictures at the moment; that’s two in a row, and three in the last week.
An inactive day, even indolent, but this was much needed. Sunny later, with the promise of spring in the air and look, Japan — we have blossoms too!
I would like to say this is a shot that highlights the biodiversity and ecological health of Manchester city centre. But actually I think this goose was rather lost and confused. Not that I was going to be the one to help it find its way back to the canal (or wherever); Canada geese are vicious buggers.
The long journey home began at 7.15 Tokyo time, when the airport shuttle bus picked us up from the hotel. This shot was taken as it crossed the ‘Rainbow Bridge’ across Tokyo Bay. Not a rainbow of colours however: thanks to the rather alarmingly blue filters on the bus windows, which were so potent that I was seeing extra pink shades inside, to compensate. Still, it’s a nice effect. Farewell to Tokyo anyway — until next time? Sayonara…
On a Sunday of, frankly, foul, revolting weather, my friend Mariam took me on a sightseeing tour of Tokyo, including the Senso-ji Buddhist temple, the city’s oldest place of worship dating from 645AD. Here, visitors purify themselves at this massive bowl of incense sticks, wafting the ‘breath of God’ over themselves before entering the shrine.
I post this pic partly because of the odd added detail, odd to us sensitive Westerners anyway; I know, I know, it’s an Eastern symbol of the sun, good fortune, life itself even. It’s found carved into church windows in Ethiopia, Bronze Age stonework in Yorkshire, prehistoric pottery in Bulgaria. Its name, translated from the Sanskrit, means “it is good”. But still, you wouldn’t find it easy to litter your holy places with swastikas in Europe. I dunno, probably we’re the ones who’ve lost out.
