Whilst walking along the boundary between Manchester’s city centre and Hulme near the Mancunion Way I noticed this old canoe. To be honest, I had walked past but turned around to see where Kov had got to. Seeing him pulling out his camera and walking towards this boat, I quickly followed. I like the way the sharp lines of the green grass work well against the round curve at the front of the canoe. If I was to re-take this photo again I would have probably done a little more gardening and removed a little of the grass by the canoes name. It looks like this wasn’t the original name for the boat; it seems to have been repainted. I wonder if there is anyone who knows or might want to speculate what the original name for this canoe is.

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Today I will be (all being well) spending the day at the Farnborough International Airshow. The above photograph however was taken last year at the Southport Airshow, a much smaller event but still impressive none the less. The four planes featured here are part of the Blades Aerobatic Team. They are flown primarily by ex Red Arrows pilots, but the aircraft are much smaller so the tricks are tighter and closer in my opinion. Sadly, the Blades team aren’t performing today at the Farnborough Airshow and due to work commitments we won’t be able to come back tomorrow to see their display.

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Millennium Bridge is one of the most modern looking bridges over the River Thames and is certainly the most modern footbridge I have ever photographed. I feel that the modern looking tourist boat on the river adds to this image. Here I was experimenting with my (at the time) brand new Sigma 10-20mm super wide angle lens. This is why the buildings look so distorted in terms of the perspective, especially at the far edges of the frame. However, using this “problem” and including a larger amount of sky has had a great effect on the clouds in my opinion.

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I was staying in the small fishing village of Plockton in the Scottish Highlands for a few days. The main (single track) road in and out of the village had a small logging area where there were piles and piles of logs. Noticing the “too big” notice on a massively thick tree truck I knew there was a photograph there and kept passing it thinking I really should stop and get a picture.

Well, on the last day I did stop and get the photograph captured. It isn’t the most exciting, unique or dynamic photo that you will find on my website but I saw it, it made me smile and I liked it enough to share it and that is all that matters to me.

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Believe it or not there are four people in this photograph. I had walked down to the beach at Abersoch to get some sunset and evening light images. It was as I was walking back to the house that I turned back towards the sea and saw this scene. If you can’t make them out, the four people are two dark vertical lines on the left and one thicker vertical line on the right of the frame. This reminded me of Another Place by Antony Gormley, otherwise known as the figures at Crosby Beach near Liverpool.

The layer of clouds is quite attractive here and seems to compliment the dark island on the horizon. The saturated colours seem to work well with the reflections and in my opinion this makes for an overall pleasing beach photograph. It just goes to show that you shouldn’t put your camera away as soon as the sun drops below the horizon, because there is still light in the air which creates interesting skyscapes.

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This is how I imagined Glasgow looked and this is how people described it to me. In fairness this is not what Glasgow looks like, for the most part it is a modern, trendy up and coming city with money. As with every large city, you can find modern parts and decaying parts. Manchester’s Northern Quarter and parts of Liverpool look very similar to the above scene and I feel always drawn to photograph these areas. You never know when they could get knocked down and have a modern apartment building put up.

I think it has been a good few years since this Upholsterers business closed down, I love all the textures of the painted wood and old brick work. You can see that the sign was originally blue, then red and finally yellow where the paint has been worn away. It is only the “no loading” sign in front of this building that really distracts and looks modern. Overall I think this building really needs upholstering!

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