I’m sure it’s up to something useful. One of those shots which, I am very aware, would have benefited from better symmetry, but there’s only so much preparatory work one can do while stood in the middle of a street.
Taking photos for its own sake means that almost anywhere becomes interesting on a first visit. When the destination is a landscape of industrial decline, on the scale of this one — the town of Goole, in East Yorkshire — there’s enough to keep me going for the whole day, and it’s a shame, in this case, that I just restrict myself to one photo per post. This is my choice — the first giraffe to appear on here? Well, it looks like that to me.
Into Manchester for the first time in 16 days. The city centre has busied itself, at least in the afternoon. Campus is still a wasteland, however. The government and administrators in their wisdom have decreed that they will only consider letting students actually meet their professors and each other after it’s far too late to make a difference this year. Optimistically the finishing touches get made to the new Engineering building but whether this white mammoth will ever be used to its full potential remains to be seen.
Should I have retouched the ‘exclamation mark’ at the top? I did consider it. Maybe it’s symbolic.
Before the war…. or, I mean, before mid-March, I had installed a moratorium on any further pictures of building sites in Manchester. But as going to Manchester looks as if it will become an avenue of escape from further house arrest, I am inclined to lift the ban. This is all happening at least a hundred feet up in the air, as the crane helps with the completion of yet another huge office block in the centre of the city, one that probably looks increasingly like an elephant of the white persuasion.
The original Blade Runner movie was set in 2019 and in Manchester’s case is currently coming to look more and more like architectural prophecy. And those quasi-human replicants that infiltrate society and create havoc? We call them “Tories”.
A break in the moratorium on pictures of building sites in Manchester, but I was sat in my office all day and there isn’t otherwise a great deal to see in this city, a state of affairs which, as locals will know, has lasted years now. The Manchester Engineering Campus Development (MECD), vast in scale (this is just a small wing of it), grows up like an incipient volcano on Upper Brook Street: apparently it’s due to be finished at some point this century.
Back to the UK, and in Manchester, for the first time since 21st March. I had set an embargo on pictures of building sites in the city, but that doesn’t necessarily leave a lot to photograph: and this delicate crane did catch the eye this morning. It reminds me of the leg of some insect, or spider, reaching up to tap on the roof above.
Here’s this year’s Spring Festival (Lunar or ‘Chinese’ New Year) shot…. there are always opportunities for pictures like this in Manchester. These lanterns catch a little of the wan sunshine that illuminated the morning. And, it being Manchester, you get a crane photo-bombing, as well.
The transformation of Manchester into a city of tower blocks continues apace. Over the last few years, how many shots from here have featured some giant construction project, completed or (mostly) otherwise? The end of Canal Street, at the New Union hotel, is now literally overshadowed by this concrete lattice, which just keeps going up, and up, and up.
“Bring me the Moon”, ordered Gru, cackling as by the force of his will alone he controlled his minions and their new big white contraption.
Being 42 