Nothing shall get through the Red Screen of Doom. Behind, a car park and some undefined ‘businesses’ may be ‘open as usual’ but we cannot know this for sure: these things may as well exist in another dimension.
One’s things for sure about the weather of 2026: our fruit have loved it. The apples are the last in the series but like everything else, there’s plenty of them and they taste very fine. The ladybird seems content enough, too.
This magnificent building has featured before, just over 10 years ago in August 2016, when I made my first visit to the town of Conwy and was rather taken with the place. Returning today with Clare for a day out gave me no reason to change my opinion.
The castle really is something, particularly as it’s been officially ruined and unoccupied for half its existence (completed in 1287, it was slighted after the Civil Wars, so has been unused since about 1650). This was no rustic little fortress, but a seat of kings: at the time, one of the most significant construction projects in Europe. Anyone who thinks history is irrelevant is an idiot, as how Edward I treated the conquered Welsh at that time still impacts on British politics today.
One of those Fridays that drifts through a day of working at home, then I find myself in the pub as usual, and it’s well into the evening before I start wondering whether I do, or do not, have a decent photo of anything at all. And, it turns out, I don’t. So this one will have to do, as it sums up this gentleman to some extent, and his ‘oldest swinger in town’ demeanour. But classy portrait photography this is not, I admit.
Broke off work early today to go to a movie with a 4pm start: this was The Incomer, which was OK I suppose, though the claim on the Picture House’s advertising blurb that it was set in Orkney (this being the main reason I went) was a falsehood. In fact it was filmed in Ireland and in the movie itself the exact location was never mentioned.
There were some animated sequences in the film and, as I sometimes do, I tried capturing shots without much hope of getting anything of much quality, but I like this one, firstly just because of the image but also the technicalities. For what you see here is evidence that the ‘motion’ element of ‘motion picture’ is an illusion. What we actually see on a cinema screen are a large number of still pictures, shown so quickly that our eyes are tricked into seeing movement — and even in the digital age this is still true of animation. But the camera is not fooled.
Britain is too crowded to let any really extensive tracts of urban decay persist for too long, but some parts of Bradford city centre definitely qualify as ‘underused’ at the present time, and any bus heading north from the Interchange will pass through them. I guess it’s been a while since one could turn up at Keencost, pay cash, and carry away an entire kitchen. I’m not saying I have a problem with urban decay though — at least not photographically.
In the 21st century, even more than wearing hi-vis gear, the status of being in possession of a Filming Permit allows one to infiltrate public space with almost total impunity. The clutch of large and mysterious trucks, the erection of ‘No Waiting’ cones and signs proclaiming the colonisation of the area (in this case, the junction of Pall Mall and Booth Street, Manchester) until some unspecified time on Thursday…. it all cries ‘film set’ to me. The clincher is seen here, though. Clearly the production is of a period piece, 20th century stuff — because no one installs phone boxes like these any more. They’re definitely props — trust me.
We both had work to do. Mine involved reading, and eventually giving a grade. The insect perceives the notion of ‘work’ rather differently and would rather be off this slidy glass surface and back somewhere with, I guess, food, or maybe just less light. Our paths coincided for a short instant.
Any intimations of drought round here were washed away some time ago, and if there is to be any ‘Indian summer’ this year then it ain’t turned up yet. This Sunday was a day full of showers, including the one pictured here. But it’s probably good for the roses — as is sometimes said. (I assume this is a rose, though I’m hardly one of the world’s great botanists.)
I mused the other day that pigeons were one of a few species who I feel do alright out of humanity, and I think that one reason is that we provide them with so many useful little places of settlement. And I pick the word specifically, because these two look very settled to me, able to rest and not worry about some cat or hawk feeling that they’re a possible source of dinner. Home is under a railway bridge, many feet above the road: I only spotted these two because I was on the top deck of a bus. I like the various colours and textures on this shot.
