Some urban rather than natural architecture again today, on a pleasant sunny morning in Manchester. It’s easier to get pictures of mountains in their correct perspective — for architecture shots you really need to be fifty feet up in the air on a crane, something I don’t have access to. But never mind.
Of all the back streets that comprise my standard walk from Manchester Victoria to my building at work, Abingdon Street is my favourite. It probably looks very much as it did a hundred years ago. Although in 1917 it probably didn’t host two of Manchester’s biggest gay clubs.
Whereas last Chinese New Year, Exchange Square in Manchester displayed an inflatable dragon, this year we are graced with this illuminated plastic ‘terracotta army’, which may or may not be the tackiest thing I have seen in a while. Still, if the purpose of the display was to get mentions on social media, it has succeeded, going on the number of people taking photos of it today. Including me of course. Or perhaps I was photographing the crowd. But it doesn’t matter does it? The end result is the same. It is what we do now.
Sunny but chilly day in Manchester, trains being obedient. Got out of the house at least, even if it wasn’t a very profound change of scene. However, some very good travel news received today — looks like in two months’ time I will be in Japan for the first time in my life, a long-cherished dream destination.
Sometimes the light is right as I am walking to the office in the morning. Sometimes, like today, it’s better in the evening. So it goes. Why a ‘ghost’ bus? Well, there are no passengers on it; and the route indicator says something weird, like ‘Logistics’ which definitely isn’t a district of Manchester.
I had a picture of the lights on Canal Street when they were up — and here they are being taken down, as tradition dictates, before Twelfth Night tomorrow. By the guy on the ladder in the background, who busted the photographer — one reason I quite like this shot, as well as the depth of field.
What these ladies in fancy dress were exactly doing outside the ticket barriers at Piccadilly Station, Manchester, today I am not 100% sure, but they all seemed to be having a good time. It’s nearly Christmas after all — also the winter solstice today, in theory we should be celebrating the turn of the year, it all gets lighter from this point on. In theory…
It’s a portrait of a stranger in a pub (the Kro Bar on Oxford Road, Manchester, as it happens), but it’s also a self-portrait. This is me, this is how I feel at the moment. I need a break. But I’m getting one, after tomorrow.
Four weeks ago everyone was going on about the ‘Supermoon’, nearest for 70 years or whatever-it-was…. Well, the moon can’t have moved that far back from Earth in the span of the last orbit, so I guess it is still pretty close. Looks it, anyway. Taken from Manchester Victoria station as I awaited the train home this evening.
Not a very exciting day, nor one that necessarily made me feel good about the wider world, so this being Manchester at the moment, here’s a picture of a bloke in a high-vis vest doing something building- or roadworks-related. There’s a lot of it about. At least it’s now the weekend.
Being 42 