Second day in a row in Manchester, that hasn’t happened since January. Familiar territory, but new in that I’ve never managed to catch anyone blowing their nose before. I didn’t set out to take such a shot; but that’s street photography for you. Taken on the steps of St. Peter’s, the University’s Catholic chaplaincy.
I went into Manchester today, but don’t tell anyone — officially I don’t go back to work there until early September. But there were reasons to go in today, which went beyond the desire to have the first Manchester photo on the blog since day 504 of the blog, 10th January, 159 days ago. This sculpture sits outside the university’s monumental Sackville Street building and pays homage to the local non-alcoholic beverage, Vimto, an anagram of, well, you can work it out.
If it wasn’t for that flash of green on the shot (behind the girl’s head) this one would be perfect…
Incidentally if all goes according to plan I am only going to be on the Manchester campus three more days until mid-June – tomorrow, Thursday and next Thursday. Travelling awaits…
476 days into doing this blog and this is the first time my campus office has appeared on it. It’s not a very inspiring place, at least, not photographically, and it faces north so it never gets any decent light. At least, so I thought – until this morning, when some strange coincidence of angle and reflection bathed it for about sixty seconds in golden sunlight. It was nice while it lasted – and means it can finally make it onto the blog. I confidently predict you’ll be seeing no more of it for the foreseeable future.
At least, after the crappy event of yesterday (the loss of my personal diary), and the tiring nature of this passage of time – which I’m only halfway through – today had the decency to be a truly glorious day. Even Oxford Road looked spectacular on this last Monday morning of the teaching term. Note the large crowd in the background – the queue for the first graduation ceremony of the season.
A rather uninspiring day which comes as part of a long run of rather uninspiring days. Today I did my best with some very limited raw material. But, ah, the joys of cropping. Crop away, I say.
Don’t even remember why I took this shot in particular, but it does seem to epitomise a grey, dull November day, as things get darker earlier and earlier.
Temporarily exiled to another office this morning while the lock on my door was being repaired, it did cross my mind that my colleague Mirka has a bowl of remarkably extensive foliage on her desk.
Haven’t been feeling very inspired lately but a few moments of good light in a grey day, a lot of cropping and going monochrome raise the interest here. This is one of the University’s more laid-back corners, a café located in what, about 100 years ago, was the main campus library.
Last time you saw the University of Manchester’s new “Learning Commons” building it was still being finished, back in early July. It’s now open and myself and some of my students got a tour of it today: off this lady here (pictured through a window separating a corridor from one of the private study spaces). And it’s impressive, too. Even if I didn’t help design it 🙂
Being 42 