The new tram lines are in place in Manchester, just behind the point from where this shot was taken: but building work is alive and well in the city centre. At some undefined point in the future — 2021, say — it might be possible to walk through the city without encountering some major construction project or other, but I have my doubts.
Another nice morning and a sunny day followed. Off we all go to work in our various ways — or possibly, come home again.
Even if the Chinese Arch is visible, almost side-on, in the background. I don’t know if this is a photo of anything. I don’t think I’ve been taking photos of specific things over the last few days. This is more about colours, shapes, textures. Maybe that’s where my head is.
Office-wise I’ve been based in the Ellen Wilkinson Building for nearly 12 years now but have little reason to venture up to its sixth floor (if you live in most of the rest of the world, its seventh). When I do I am reminded what a decent view it has, even if today the light wasn’t as it could be. But there’s quite a distance in sight here, south to the Derbyshire Pennines, and the tower of Manchester Royal Infirmary nearer the camera.
I post this picture also to launch myself on one of these mini blog-projects that sometimes motivate me. Coming up: eleven different photo locations in eleven days. Let’s do it.
A decent run of morning shots in recent weekdays. I like this shot because of the general yellowness but then contrasted with the blue of the woman, and the lines up the middle and across the bottom. Composition then, I guess.
Found myself in the Physics and Astronomy building on Manchester today, named for Arthur Schuster, physicist and coiner of the term ‘antimatter’ whose bust in the foyer currently sports a rather fetching pink bow tie and fluffy rabbit ears. And why not.
This alley heads off Cross Street in Manchester and then ends after about twenty metres in the blank white wall of the building you see ahead. That building must have been built quite a while ago now, like in the 1970s at the latest. No car or other vehicle has come down this street in a long time. And as the double yellow lines imply, you aren’t supposed to even use this as a lay-by.
So why the arrow? Why a nice, bright, reasonably freshly painted ‘turn right’ sign (when Cross Street isn’t even one-way)? Answers on a postcard to Manchester City Council please.
Not the most exciting photo either but at least it indicates I had schlepped my way down to campus for the first time since March 2nd. Which, like most of Manchester has been throughout the whole lifetime of this blog, is being rebuilt — here, the Business School, part of the whole ‘campus masterplan’ that will turn us into some world-leading something-or-other, if the money doesn’t run out first, anyway.
I do say that on this blog no pictures are staged or posed, and this is the case — I do not arrange any photos specifically to be a blog post, I just take pictures of what’s happening around me at any given time. This is perhaps on the borderline of acceptability then but I did take this photo anyway, for other purposes, and it was the one that I liked best today. My Educational Technology and Communication students on their annual field trip to the National Football Museum in Manchester, with replicas of the Premier League and FA Cup trophies.
An ‘installation’, I guess you’d call this, on campus at the moment…. Probably a huge amount of sociological analysis to be done here.
And how would I answer this question? Well, my bucket list is actually getting a few things ticked off it this year, if all works out (e.g. Japan, midnight sun, eclipse), so maybe I should think of some new ones. Or be all Zen about it, accept that my life could end at any time, and just take what’s coming — while continuing to faithfully record it of course.
Being 42 