An abstract, really; going monochrome also disguises a main feature of the shot, the impressively blue skies, reflecting another day of pleasantly Mediterranean weather. But this one is about the shapes and the textures.
A walk around the Todmorden area today gave me the chance to see from above the railway line on which I travel frequently to Manchester. The settlement is certainly packed into this narrow valley at this point, isn’t it. But the railway somehow dominates, like it’s the thing that really controls the transport here.
This is the fourth shot in a row taken outside of Hebden Bridge. The last time that happened was over Christmas, in Norfolk — and the time before that, early October. This says a lot about the last few months.
Pecket Well is one of the little settlements up on the hilltops above town. Architecturally, it probably hasn’t changed much in a while. Though if that fire was not kept under control it might have lost a barn yesterday.
Of course, this is not a model, it is a real landscape above the (awkwardly-named) town of Penistone, in South Yorkshire. But though there area actually two large turbines to the right, it sure looks to me like one is the shadow of the other, cast on the backcloth of a diorama built in a shoe box, or something. And the patchwork of frost and field, the general graininess of the picture…. seems fake to me. Perhaps there is a model railway below, just out of shot.
This ersatz life continues. Walking is about the only entertainment available — at least, the only one that should be depicted on here. The monument on Stoodley Pike has featured several times on this blog (follow the tag); the houses are the northern end of Heptonstall; and last week’s snow has all gone, for now.
I see little prospect of my leaving the UK for the rest of 2020, to be honest. But luckily, this is a diverse and beautiful island, and there are plenty of bits of it that I have not seen yet. Up until today, that included the Hope Valley, which heads into the Pennines west of Sheffield, and can be reached on a train from there or Manchester. I rectified this omission today, and had a grief-free and pleasant day out there, and a dry one, despite the showers which seemed to be affecting everywhere else in the north today. I hope the couple pictured here enjoyed it too.
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.
Flew over to Moscow again today, where I’m working all week. My intention was to post a totally gratuitous photo of Germany, where I changed planes, purely to get an 8th country onto this blog. But though I got some decent shots of Frankfurt today, where it was a lovely sunny day, this shot of the Pennine hills just outside Manchester as we took off this morning has to be the winner. Germany can wait. I’ll be passing back through on Friday so we’ll see if an equally gratuitous shot makes it then. Meantime, the mist.
Being 42 