An abstract, really; going monochrome also disguises a main feature of the shot, the impressively blue skies, reflecting another day of pleasantly Mediterranean weather. But this one is about the shapes and the textures.
It’s not been the most dynamic week, though work was done. Time to pack up and look forward to the weekend.
Here’s how I begin this 11th year of blogging, my 53rd of life. In monochrome and with a shaving cut. It’s been a good birthday.
This is the eleventh time that 26th August has cycled round on this blog. Including today, the last four, photographically anyway, have been spent in Hebden Bridge, with 26/8/17 (in Urbana, Illinois) the last time I spent my birthday away from home. This is also the 50th self-portrait of some kind or another to feature on here.
More food, and more alcohol — note the presence of a bottle of Rochefort 10-year-old, already declared on here as the world’s finest beer. But then, I am on holiday, and food and alcohol is at least part of what being on holiday is all about. Taken in the aptly named ‘Friends of Ham’ bar/restaurant in Leeds, at the start of a trip down South.
A day spent between walks. Did another dose of museum instead, specifically the ‘Scottish Crannog Centre‘ on Loch Tay. A crannog, it seems, is an Iron Age dwelling built on an artificial island in the loch; there are reckoned to be many of these throughout Scotland and Ireland. This centre had a reproduction of one, until it burnt down last year — the impressive thing is that the place was still interesting and good value without it. That had a huge amount to do with the staff, including this guy, clearly the boss, but his minions earned their wages too.
An uneventful day to bring to an end a relatively Hebden Bridge-bound period of the blog, but there are trips away planned for much of the rest of July. Why the monochrome? As so often — because it covers up red blotches caused by lens flare.
Since the start of the Great Fear it’s been the cities, like Manchester, which have felt the most alien and empty. Shoppers have come back, but not yet tourists nor office workers. Whether or not those latter groups will return, and how, is still an open question. But this stage, being built for the Manchester International Festival is, to me, a sign of optimism — yet there are still so many lockdown-loving lunatics out there (most obviously in the Labour Party) that we may never be sure of anything again. Covid ain’t going away, anyone. We will be catching it, ‘testing positive’ for it, for the rest of our lives. Get used to it.
I shaved the rest off after taking this photo, rest assured.
And where are all the people who should be in the empty offices, as pictured yesterday? Trapped behind these magic mirrors, in some kind of netherworld. Myth becomes life, and slowly we fade away, losing more and more connections with the reality we once knew.
Manchester’s still not exactly busying up on a morning, but its comatose, lockdown self is not unattractive. I like this shot — excepting the litter bin, which never helps. Nor do lampposts.
Being 42 