Day 1,111 of the blog, so something of a numerical curiosity, and worth trying to mark with a decent photo, at least. This is the old Port of Stavanger, still used by cruise ships and tourist fjord cruises, caught in the evening light but with a dark and stormy sky behind — though the storm never actually came. I like the single seagull caught in the rays.
My knowledge of ornithology is not that fine-tuned, so I can’t identify which of the 40 or so species this is, but it’s definitely a cormorant. I’m travelling again — this is taken in Norway, but not on the sea: instead, this fine specimen was resting on Stavanger’s city centre lake, Breivatnet, which has featured on the blog before.
Beautiful day today, coming at that time of year when you want to make the most of each day of very good weather in case it’s the last such day you see for 8 months. These flags have appeared this weekend in that much-photographed spot opposite the tables outside the Railway, and posed well in the evening light — those sunsets getting ever earlier as the world turns.
Halifax Town’s number 7 trots over to do his duty, while the substitutes of Aldershot Town look on. The home team (that is, Halifax) won 1-0. I’ve been to quite a few football matches during the course of this blog and don’t think I’ve ever managed a decent action shot — it’s not an easy genre of photography to master, particularly not when you’re up in the stands and limited to a single vantage point. This one isn’t an ‘action’ shot at all of course, but I kind of like it for its feel of being a pause, a moment of transition between one bit of the game and another.
Think landscapes are easy to photograph? No! Landscapes are capricious and complex. Like women. You have to get them in the mood, and when they’re there, don’t hang around — it might not last long.
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.
Sometimes the shot is just a consequence of being stood in the right spot at the right time, isn’t it? And you wait ages for a photogenic plastic bag to come along, then there’s two in two days…
It says much about the day when the most interesting photo taken all day was as I got the camera out of the bag to take a different shot, turned it on, looked at the screen as it pointed down past the plastic bag I was carrying and thought, OK, let’s do that one too. The railings look nicely symmetrical. But I’m reaching.
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.
Being 42 