I do say that on this blog no pictures are staged or posed, and this is the case — I do not arrange any photos specifically to be a blog post, I just take pictures of what’s happening around me at any given time. This is perhaps on the borderline of acceptability then but I did take this photo anyway, for other purposes, and it was the one that I liked best today. My Educational Technology and Communication students on their annual field trip to the National Football Museum in Manchester, with replicas of the Premier League and FA Cup trophies.
An ‘installation’, I guess you’d call this, on campus at the moment…. Probably a huge amount of sociological analysis to be done here.
And how would I answer this question? Well, my bucket list is actually getting a few things ticked off it this year, if all works out (e.g. Japan, midnight sun, eclipse), so maybe I should think of some new ones. Or be all Zen about it, accept that my life could end at any time, and just take what’s coming — while continuing to faithfully record it of course.
As of a couple of years ago our Meteorological Office started naming our winter storms in accordance with the convention for hurricanes, cyclones etc. — it’s more media-friendly, you can tweet about #StormDoris which is the one which apparently hit the UK today. I don’t personally know anyone called Doris, but I have gone off the name after today — however, we could of course have Storm Drew at this time next year.
Our multimedia guy, Peter, gets himself set up ready to film me talking about something or other in my office. I had to sound reasonably intelligent but really, it’s not going to make your day more interesting if you knew what the subject matter had been.
I spent the last few hours of the working week as an examiner for some assessed presentations. A stream of fresh and (usually) interesting 20- to 21-year-olds coming in to convince us of their plans for world domination. And you know? A few of them have a shot at it. I like this shot because of the tea ladies in the background (they had just cleared away the detritus of the morning shift), the left-hand student’s incipient bubblegum moment, the relatively grand surroundings of the very finely-named Whitworth building…. And that it’s Friday. I’ve had a 6-day week, I need a weekend.
The university have a campaign at the moment around environmental sustainability, and for whatever reason the marketing types see fit, it is called ‘10,000 Actions’, hence these hedgerow digits propped up by Oxford Road. Once I knew I was going to be in Manchester today, this was always going to be the choice, although I did somewhat ruefully notice yesterday that two of the zeroes had fallen down.
No matter, it’s the symbolism. I have reached my own big, round number — 2,000 days’ blogging. Every day a photo taken by me, on the day: there has been no cheating, I assure you, no retrospectives. Considering I just set out to do this for a year, I’m chuffed that I not only still have the motivation to keep going, but nothing has yet blown out on me, like a malfunctioning SD card or stolen camera — or worst of all, the feeling that on a given day, there has been simply nothing to photograph.
In celebration I have created a new ‘top 20 from 2,000’ page: my own favourite 1%. The stats have been updated too — these are an integral part of the blogging process for me, they are what allow me to notice the quirks and eddies and flows of my life, and how this daily photographing of one or other part of it build up into something meaningful. I don’t pretend to be a photographer — I hope I never have — what this blog is, is an extension of my diary, the visual, image-based journal that I show to the world on a daily basis: but most of all keep for myself. I thank you, though, for following it; likes and visits help me keep it connected to the rest of the world, and it’s nice to know that there are some of you out there who want to check in now and again and make me realise it’s not all gross self-indulgence. Thank you for still being here after 2,000 days.
And will I keep it going? Well, each time I think of stopping there seems to be just one more little carrot dangling ahead. Reaching numerical milestones like today is ongoing encouragement, and then looking forward…. over the next seven months I am already down to travel to Japan, the Arctic (twice, including for the midnight sun in June), the USA, other parts of Russia (non-Moscow) and some other new spots as well. Too much potential interest to stop now…. So on we go. Here’s to the third millennium.
I don’t make a habit of photographing work colleagues in their natural environment, but here I did think a nice portrait unfolded itself as Stephanie prepares to launch the 2-4pm session. Thursday is generally a Meeting Day — so there’s a level of appropriateness to it./
Although teaching term has restarted at Manchester, this guy still looked very much on his own in the corner of this particular campus café, and that’s what I was trying to capture.
Back in the foul summer of 2012, 29th August to be precise, the blog featured a photo of this building (the headquarters of AQA, the examinations authority) with a heavy storm brewing behind it. At that time the office from which I took the picture was occupied by an admin colleague, while I was stuck in a cold and dim room on the north side of the building, without a view, that I never liked and never felt at home in, which is why it never featured on the blog (I think only two pictures were ever taken in there). Happy to say that this summer I moved, and my view is now much better — although the weather looks much the same on this shot (but it’s November, rather than August, so we’ll let it off somewhat).
As I’ve been saying for some years now it’s hard to point a camera anywhere in Manchester and not have a decent chance of capturing a building site. This particular one is being initiated by my employers at the University as the final piece (for now) in the “£1bn Campus Masterplan” as we must learn to call it. A massive new engineering building will rise here over the next couple of years, unless the whole economy tanks in the mean time of course. Which does not look as distant a project as it did a year ago.
Being 42 