Once more, London. I spend far more time here now than I ever did when I actually lived down south. This portrait came about because of noticing the bendiness of the windows on this Central line train. A kind of Daliesque thing? A little bit, anyway.
There is still just under a month to go until I start teaching the latest intake, but plenty needs doing to be ready for that day. Hence the length of the morning meeting. I skulk around, visible as a shadow in the mirror, while my colleagues emerge in the direction of lunch.
Once again, not the most exciting day, photographically or otherwise. But this one can make the cut for the curiosity factor of a pre-8am shot in Manchester: the earliest taken there since December 2022. These used to happen a lot more often; in 2019 alone I count six. But in 2019 I was still trying to be some kind of ‘manager’ at work. Not any more. These days, the Exchange Square pigeons can have their early morning paddles without me. In fact that was the last day I will be on campus until the 22nd.
Whatever happened on the 22nd February at 9.55am happened while I was in Dubai, so I do not know the details. But going on the location, at the junction of Booth Street and Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, the ‘serious collision’ was most likely between a car and a tram — something which really shouldn’t happen in broad daylight. The tram is never going to come off worse in such an encounter. One therefore assumes the memorial flowers — note the £3.50 price tag visible on one bunch — are for at least one occupant of the car. And their ghost keeps a careful watch.
(OK, actually I’m the ‘ghost’, but it does look a little eerie, and was something I did not notice at the time of taking the shot.)
Some pictures get on here because they are exactly the shot I wanted to capture when pressing the shutter. This is not one of those pictures. Until I uploaded it later and had a look I was assuming it hadn’t worked out; I was just trying to take a shot of these two mannequins in a shop window with mirrors instead of faces. Why anyone would design a mannequin in such a way I don’t know, as I thought it looked kinda creepy; hence my taking the photo.
But then the trees over the road crowd in, reflected in the glass of the shop window, plus, is that a self-potrait of the photographer captured in the lower part of the parallel dimension that seems to have opened up where that face should have been? Ghostly….. Or, possibly, just a bad photo, but here it is anyway.
Continuing the theme I raised a couple of days ago regarding the power of hi-vis…. these guys were on the roof outside my office window, Doing Stuff: cleaning the solar panels apparently. Which, OK, I guess need cleaning now and again. I like the mild optical illusion on this one, for all reflections are an optical illusion; the guy on the right is not quite where he seems to be.
It’s been a few months since I did a self-portrait, and the prospect of this one did occur to me while sat having a pre-meeting cup of tea in Tim Hortons, pondering how we can find ways to continue the collaboration that has brought me here three times now. I am here sat in more or less the same spot from which I took this shot in October 2021, and armed with the knowledge of the venue, the building in the background and Google Maps you can probably pinpoint the exact location should you wish to.
I continue to munch air miles in 2024, as I have returned to Toronto for a couple of weeks’ work. On my first afternoon I was wondering what picture I should get to best represent the city where I’ve already spent 17 days of my life. The CN Tower, or other big, tall buildings? Another of the fine collection of murals? But in the end, let’s go with a pub, as there are some fine drinking holes to be found here — including the Imperial pub downtown, as pure a 1970s relic of interior design as I have ever seen. It still has working aquaria, for heaven’s sake. I saw the girl’s reflection in the mirrored pillar and tried it.
On the Easter weekend, it’s a good idea to get out of Hebden Bridge — even if it’s only to travel a few miles along the canal. The sun was shining, there were no people…. this is what we want.
Another day of data inspection and introspection brings to an end a whole week of much the same kind of stuff, so ending it with a rather ghostly self-portrait seems appropriate. Yes, I’m in a pub (The Albert), though not drinking rum.
Being 42 