Sad reindeer in the snow

I shivered round town again this dinner time and again walked through the Sheffield Christmas market. There was a new stand which and wasn't there yesterday and which appears to sell plants and stuffed fake reindeer. I thought that apart from looking very forlorn in today's snow, these do seem a bit dear to me (a bit deer, geddit?. Oh alright, suit yourself then).

Cuckoo clock seller

Sheffield has a Christmas market! I took a look round this dinner time and wondered if there was anything 'normal' people might buy (nope, not really). This is the cuckoo clock seller, surrounded by cuckoo clocks large and small. They don't seem *that* expensive to me, but maybe they aren't precision Swiss clocks inside but some battery-operated Far Eastern tat?

Lonely lane in the snow

The lane to Hope railway station on a winter's night. The lane is long and straight and is lit with very white streetlamps that contrast dramatically against the orange sodium lamps of the main roads. On a winter's night I think it just looks like a tunnel disappearing through the trees.

Cold Nose (or winter's first snow)

We had the first flurry of winter snow overnight in Macclesfield. Just a few centimetres so a had a little drive round to take a look. This is a long (30 second) exposure of Teggs Nose from Bottoms reservoir near Langley.

WTF?

Don't you just love this city? One day you pass through Barker's Pool and there's a farmer's market. The next and there's a 25 foot high Scottie dog. I wander into town some dinner times and wonder what the hell I am going to find next. I'm now kicking myself though - I should have made an offer for it as it would make a GREAT garden ornament for my Aunt Sandra.

City Hall by night

The Crimbo lights are out in town now - yippee (irony). The City Hall is quite tasteful compared to the santa's grotto mountain further down the hill. I probably let it get a little too dark before taking the picture, but hopefully not turned out too badly, all-in-all.

OMG the students are revolting

A massive, massive march today from the students union (of both Unis) to the town hall, where several hundreds were gathered to hear a lot of shouting and chanting. I don't think they stormed anything this week though there there were a LOT of police - more mounted coppers than the United-Wednesday derby and the chopper was up as well. These two characters on the balustrade of the town hall caught my eye, and as you can see, I've caught the pirate's attention too. It kinda makes me smile because with him looking at me it sort of looks like a posed shot, so now if I ever get asked to shoot fashion with a protest theme, I'll know exactly what to do.

Students are just so cynical these days

It is interesting times we live in. Us old farts who remember back in the day can recall Mrs T getting into the PMs house. In those days the Argies were restless about Las Malvinas, the navy just scrapped the Ark Royal, a governement of millionaires introduced austerity measures and unpopular taxes leading to strikes and riots. I am just glad this time round it's nothing like that! And speaking of the BBC News - today they told me that stocks had 'plummeted' at the news of Ireland's financial bail-out. I checked. I think the fall was about 1.8%, which is hardly a headlong dive, is it?

Boris

Some time last century, when I first came to Sheffield for my interview at the University, I passed this giant stainless steel spider climbing the wall somewhere in Attercliffe. For years I never saw it again, often thinking I must have imagined it, until one day I decided to take a different road and there it was once more. Now I take that road all the time and see it often. It turns out to be on the side of the headquarters of a hugely successful Sheffield company called Gripple, a specialist metal joint maker. Funnily enough, whilst Her Maj was being badly sung to by children in the cathedral last week, to preserve his sanity, her hubby was visiting the high-tech Gripple factory instead. And in a neat twist, Jack B has an interview there soon for his summer placement from the Uni.

Oh and if you're not afraid of spiders, check out this YouTube clip of the Gripple spider escaping

Homage to Mr Brandt

Took a trip out to Dean Clough Mills this afternoon. Whilst you are there it is apparently compulsory for photographers to take their own version of Bill Brandt's famous picture Snicket in Halifax. Incidentally, nowhere in the mill's art gallery (or bookshop) do they have anything of Bill Brandt's, or have any information on where to find the snicket... nothing. If I was an art and photography gallery with one of the 1930's most iconic images on site, I might just mention it?

PS I actually forgot to take my Bill Brandt book with me, so I took the picture entirely from memory - I am chuffed how close I got to the original, even if my cobbles weren't wet! Meanwhile I love the fact that the same two cobbles are still missing in the foreground 73 years after the original was taken.

Angular

I have been waiting for the scaffolding to come down from the University's Arts Tower for ages. Now it is down I am clicking away like an idiot. I better not do any more! But it looks so stark and angular on a grey day like today. Well it was either that or the contents of my trip to Wickes DIY emporium, and trust me, magnolia emulsion does not make a good image.

Regent Court quad

This is the quad of the building where I work taken in the late afternoon - caught just as I was about to head off home. I could tell you I work incredibly late, but I'm afraid it starts to get dark pretty early these days and the lights come on about 4pm.

Escorting Her Maj

The Queen came to Sheffield Uni today. Her motorcade actually passed within a few feet of me walking on my own up Brook Hill, giving me a totally clear view into her limo. I had the camera ready and everything but for some reason I didn't lift and shoot. Maybe with the news crews and the photojournalists falling over each other at Firth Court, I subconsciously felt that the world doesn't need one more snap of Her Maj. For some reason I'm actually a little proud that I resisted the temptation to act like a tourist. She didn't bloody wave though.

Happy Faces

When I went up to the Ski village yesterday, I passed an indoor skate park at the bottom of the hill. Located in an old factory building, the exterior is one complete mass of murals and graffiti. Here's just a small section - I think the colour makes a welcome change on a grey, rainy day like today.

Panorama from Parkwood Springs

This is a panorama overlooking most of the city centre from next to Sheffield Ski Village at Parkwood Springs. It's made up of six images shot in portrait format and stitched together in Photoshop. However, each image is itself a blend of three different exposures, making eighteen pictures in all. Even my 4GB Mac had to churn away for a full 30 minutes to process that much data! If you click on the image to get a larger version you'll see how detailed it actually is.

No, don't photograph me I'm shy

Diane and I made the long trek (118 miles each way!) out to Donna Nook on the Lincolnshire coast today. Every Nov/Dec several hundred Grey Seals haul out onto the sands and dunes to pup. It's quite a sight and a chance to see a colony of wild seals amazingly close. Most of them are not at all shy.

Lest We Forget

Attended the Remembrance Ceremony at Macclesfield Cenotaph this morning. This veteran was clearly overcome after the silence.

View from Mow Cop

I was trying desperately to think of somewhere close-ish to take a picture today before the clouds rolled in. Somehow I ended up at Mow Cop, a folly on the Staffordshire border overlooking the Cheshire Plain.

Contrasts

There was a tiny window in the windy grey weather this afternoon to go out and grab a picture I had seen some days ago. The bright colours really grabbed my eye at the time.

Graphic grey

After yesterday's sunshine, it was something of a shock to be presented with a genuinely damp, grey early winter day. My shooting style is not geared up for it! I wandered round for quite a while getting wet and cold before the graphic shapes of the University Arts Tower pulled the camera upwards.

The new face of Brutalism

By day this building is a brutalist concrete blockhouse that houses the city telephone exchange, but by night it's transformed into a magic castle. I should apologise to Mark for nicking his picture idea, except whilst I was precariously balanced in the middle of a traffic island taking it I was joined by another photographer with exactly the same idea in mind. There's probably a dozen pictures of it on Flickr already.

Balance?

Dinnertime today I was wandering around in between the almost unremitting rain looking for pictures, when this military helicopter flew over, did a complete circuit and then flew off. I snapped a picture, 'cos that's what I do. When I later came to look at it the first thing I thought was 'just missed the sweet spot' - a few seconds earlier the helicoper and the tower block would have balanced in the frame. Usually I'd dismiss the picture, but something pulled me back. I still don't know what it is; maybe the tension in an unbalanced image, maybe because I feel it's a story unresolved? Of course that could all be complete bull, but all I know for sure is that for some reason I like it.

Real Superdry

It's rained a bit these last few hours. OK, a lot. I've never seen such a great puddle at this point in Broad Lane before, and judging by the speed cars were hitting it neither has anyone else. In the 15 mins I stood with the camera I think I saw a fair bit of clean underwear needed by several drivers and a fair bit of clean everything by a lot of pedestrians. Today's title comes from the hoodie of the running chap in the foreground.

Early morning, Lyme Green

The BBC forecast a foggy morning this morning, or at least they did when I went to bed last night, so I was casting around for ideas of what would make a good fog picture. As you might imagine I was somewhat surprised by the bright, clear morning I was greeted with instead. This is the Macclesfield Canal at Lyme Green around 8am (which apparently counts as early on Sunday). I love the fact that we still have all these bright colours around.

Fireworks!

Yesterday was Bonfire Night, but of course it rained, which doesn't really make one keen to go out and watch fireworks. However, Macclesfield Cricket Club held over their display for tonight, and yay, it didn't rain. Here's part of the display I managed to catch.

Colourful Rasta doors

I spotted these doors down an side road in the Burngreave part of the city. It's the first time I have walked round with a camera and people have paid me any real attention - plenty of suspicious looks which made me think that a white man with a camera maybe represents the Babylon a little in this part of town.

If I had a (steam) hammer

This baby stands guard near the Land Rover dealer on Saville Street. I believe it marks the entrance to the heavily industrialised part of Sheffield called Attercliffe on the Lower Don Valley. At one time it would have been all steelworks and foundries, but now it's mostly light industry, warehousing and car dealerships all the way to Sheffield Forgemasters a mile or two down the road.

I'm sorry, I haven't a clue

I was walking round at dinner, as is my wont, snapping this, that and t'other, yet when I got home I found this in amongst all the deliberate shots. I must have pressed the shutter by accident at some point. What's more annoying is I actually quite like the picture. Argh, the camera is better at this than I am!

Mucky Duck

I was wandering by the pond in Weston Park when all of a sudden all of the ducks went into a mad washing, cleaning and preening frenzy. I have no idea what that was all about, but they were at it for long enough for me to change all the settings on the camera to get this motion-blurred shot of a splashing duck.

Tesselation

An uncharacteristically warm 1st November dinnertime saw me wandering around practicing street photography with not quite good enough results IMHO. I didn't have a deal of time and no-one seemed to be doing anything interesting, which didn't help. However, the repeating patterns on this empty street also caught my eye. Here I have spilt-toned it into a monochrome image which I hope emphasises the effect.