Tuesday 13th August 2013, 11.15am (day 719)
The tripod, the docked iPod, the discarded costumery; the wife must want one of her routines filming. Happy to oblige.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: photography
Whalley station and viaduct
Monday 12th August 2013, 2.40pm (day 718)
Joe had spent the weekend at my parents’ while we were in Hamburg, so I went to pick him up today. I could have hired a car and driven in two hours, but I took my time, went by train and savoured the day. I’m on holiday, who wants to drive.
Incidentally, this line is a rare example of one that was reopened (in 1995) after the infamous “Beeching axe” originally fell on it in the 1960s. The reopening happened under a Tory government too. Probably because it was a marginal seat, or maybe the party was still run by sane people at the time. Anyway; what you see here are the tracks extending out over a high viaduct over the River Hodder.
FC St Pauli club shop
Sunday 11th August 2013, 11.20am (day 717)
If you like football, and you have any kind of countercultural leanings, you gotta like FC St. Pauli of Hamburg. Either you know why or you don’t. This is one of the reasons I wanted to come to the city. Shame they lost today, mind.
Planten un Blomen, Hamburg
Saturday 10th August 2013, 4.55pm (day 716)
I must admit that I thought Hamburg would be a rather modern and industrial kind of place. Actually it’s a very attractive city, plenty of old buildings and lots of green space. We walked every day through this park, called Planten un Blomen. My real target in this picture was the dog, but as I took the shot the girl turned round, the runner came past, and I think they all make a nice little set.
Große Freiheit, Hamburg
Friday 9th August 2013, 9.40pm (day 715)
Although it has managed to sneak onto the ‘Best of the Rest’ page thanks to an aerial photo (of Frankfurt) this is Germany’s first proper appearance on the blog: and this is probably its most notorious street, the heart of Hamburg’s red-light district. Well, why not. You gotta do these things now and again. Actually compared to Amsterdam’s it’s rather tame, though interesting. Clare’s sat to my right as this picture was taken, in case you were wondering.
The neon guitar in the background, by the way, marks the site of the Kaiserkeller, one of the host venues for the Beatles’ now-legendary Hamburg gigs in 1961. Probably if you counted the number of people who claimed to be there, it’s in the several millions by now.
Having dinner outside Whitelocks
Thursday 8th August 2013, 7.15pm (day 714)
You saw Whitelocks not so long ago but, well, here it is again. The channellng of the sun down the alley to hit the blonde hair was too nice to resist. This was the prelude to a long weekend away, which I’ve just returned from, so there’s some catching up to do.
One way only
Wednesday 7th August 2013, 5.55pm (day 713)
Another little corner of town. No symbolic intent, I just like the aesthetics of the shot. This has been the most Hebden Bridge-bound passage of the blog, since mid-June. However, I’ve finished the first draft of the book, am having two weeks off and travelling a great deal more over the next month. So perhaps the arrow does have a symbolic meaning after all.
Sweeping up, Old Gate
Tuesday 6th August 2013, 8.35am (day 712)
This demolition site — old industrial premises — in the centre of town has been close to getting on the blog for a couple of weeks now, today it’s made it. Seems a bit strange to be sweeping up at the start of the working day, but I’m just a sedentary intellectual type, what do I know.
Monday cloudscape
Monday 5th August 2013, 7.35pm (day 711)
I am in the final stages of writing the first draft of my book and literally did not leave the house all day. With rain most of the day and flat light, opportunities were very slim. But in the end, the atmosphere obliged with a cloudscape.
Car boot sale, Halifax
Sunday 4th August 2013, 7.05am (day 710)
What makes this post somewhat exceptional in the general scheme of things is not so much its aesthetics but the time of its taking. I mean…. on a Sunday? And this place was packed at that time. We’d gone down to offload a bunch of Joe’s old toys, but nearly couldn’t get a plot despite getting up at 4.45am and arriving there an hour later at most. And at 6am people were turning up demanding to know whether we had any PS3 games. Blimey. Free-market capitalism, eh. I guess it works at this local scale.
