Abingdon Street is one of those little city centre back streets that I have found down the years and use because there is very little other traffic on it (wheeled or on foot). Hence why this guy can relax and have a kip, or indeed this guy, taken just on the other side of the road. Clearly it is a prime location in Manchester for morning constitutionals. Why the monochrome? It was the greyest day in weeks, and I felt like it.
At 554 feet, or 169m, this is the tallest building in the UK outside of London, and also one of the world’s thinnest buildings: not apparent in this shot but the unseen third dimension is very slight. Only the topmost floors are seen in this shot, but these are the highest residential apartments in the UK. And apparently it makes a great noise when the wind is high. I like the way the windows had caught the vague sunlight this morning.
More glorious weather, though in fact that is not so unusual at this time of year. I have evidence, too: pictures from September 16th 2015 (not 15th, admittedly: glorious though….); 16/9/14 (beautiful!); 15/9/12 (great, and almost the first really fine day of a lousy summer)….
Not that I’m complaining. May there be more, particularly this Saturday, which I have to spend mostly standing in a field.
As a few recent photos have suggested, we are entering a good time of year for dramatic skies. I like the NGI building, it somehow matches its main host substance — which I guess is the point, architecturally. Well, my employers have spent enough on it, so it’d better be good I suppose….
Beautiful morning in Manchester. Took two or three photos I was happy with, but all of them before 8.50am; after emerging from a day at work the light had mostly gone. Anyway it’s about time I acknowledged a morning again, after 12 consecutive afternoon shots. The sign points into (or away from) the entrance to Café Muse at the Manchester Museum.
One for the occasional series, “machines enjoying doing their jobs”? (A previous entry here….). Or just an additional depiction of the rebuilding of Manchester’s entire city centre? If theories of capitalism and ‘creative destruction’ are right, by 2050 this could become the world norm.
A shot from Manchester prior to 9am? I must be back at work. What statement this guy is trying to make outside the ‘Burger and Lobster’ bar I don’t know, but I like it.
Last day in Manchester, for work purposes, until August 16th. Let’s note this annual moment in time — the threshold of my summer holiday — with a picture of a rather nice room on campus which, grandiose as it is, seems hardly ever to be used.
Not quite the week I had planned, but today was always going to be a day in Manchester. This colonnade — there’s one on each side of the building — is a scene I pass most times I walk from the station to work, been meaning to photograph it for some time, today it got its chance.
Saw this shot coming this morning, so played for it — I think it’s worked out. I like the almost random mix of colour and shape. These are about all we have to play with at the moment, ‘cos there’s no goddamn light.
The red plaque, by the way, commemorates the 1872 visit of a Japanese delegation to Manchester, a visit from which they returned inspired to kick start their own industrial revolution.
Being 42 