Although a chillier day today than it has been, I think we can still say that spring is here. Not sure whether these two were feeding themselves, or the ducks in the river below their feet (and cropped out of shot), but either way the title still applies. Why the black and white? Why not? Sometimes the colours just don’t work out so well.
Joe’s great-grandmother — Clare’s gran, Alma Draper — is 90 today; happy birthday to her. That’s a lot of life. We attended the celebrations in Morecambe today. This picture shows them both standing up, incidentally — Joe is getting much taller, and Gran, well, she’s never been particularly tall.
I’m examining a doctoral thesis in Glasgow tomorrow and it’s too far to do as a day trip so I came up tonight. This shot was snapped during a spell of good light on the train, somewhere around Carlisle. The Mac shows that I’m still just about working at this point but it wasn’t to last much longer — then again, you try assimilating Michel Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge past 5pm on a Thursday. But then again I did have wine (as seen bottom left).
Broke the drive back from Aberystwyth at this cafe in Llangollen, north-east Wales. Clare and Joe ponder the meaning of the universe or possibly just a very good few days.
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.
Second of five days in a row where I guarantee I am not going beyond the home — pub — shop axis. Time to dig into some creative corners; I’ve had my eye on this door for a while.
Specifically, the one connecting the vast conference space at the Celtic Manor with the equally vast lobby and vast spread of guest rooms. Did I mention it was a vast place?
I over-exposed this one when I took it, but then I just ran with it, there are some nice shapes and lines here. I like the way his legs have almost disappeared.
This is not my only walking route from Victoria to the office, but I head up and down it frequently enough. We are heading into that time of year where at the time I typically walk down it, the sunlight will be coming from straight ahead — not always easy to capture well but when it works, it’s great light. Today, the clouds helped; but there was still some flare, which led to spots of odd colour, hence the monochrome.
The building on the far left, by the way, is the Manchester Aquatics Centre, venue for the swimming and diving events of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
This stall is a familiar sight on the walk back up Oxford Road into the city centre: it’s there in the same spot every weekday, and maybe weekends too. I like this shot because it’s the one I meant to take, only it’s gone monochrome to obscure the fact that the square behind the woman’s head was a totally incongruous bright purple on the initial version. It still looks a bit conspicuous here but overall the effect is much better in black and white.
Took Clare out tonight as it is her birthday tomorrow. Proof I am not normally the dirty-stop-out type comes by noting this is the latest shot in any given day for three months, since 24th July. But the clocks went back last night, it was dark by 5pm so I have to get used to shooting in low light again.
Being 42 