Harry Potter

Jackets for Daniel Radcliffe

Our daughter treated my wife and me to a day out, recently. We went to see the sets on which the Harry Potter films were made. A couple of my friends had been and had posted pictures on Facebook, so I knew we were in for a good day. I wasn't disappointed. Sophie, Kath and I gleefully embarrassed ourselves by posing on the Knightbus, and in the Ford Anglia, whilst screaming and pulling appropriately terrified looking faces. I also looked out  for the chance to take a few arty shots. Repeating patterns always make a good photo, I think, so when I spotted a rack of clothes, each identical except that each was a little more 'worn' and damaged than the last, I took a photo. I set the camera's aperture to its widest setting in order to blur the background, and took three shots. I think this is the best of them.

Sand Bay

It seems to be a peculiarly British thing to complain about the town in which you live. There are even polls in which people vote for the 'honour' of having their town declared the 'crappest' place to live in the UK. It's clear that these polls are highly subjective, of course. Both Bath and Windsor are in the top ten! Who knows why people compete to have their town declared as crap. Maybe they want to show that they are 'better' that the place in which they live - kind of like saying, 'yes, this place is rubbish, but I don't really belong here'. I've recently become one of those people. I live in a seaside town. In recent years, many drug rehab places have opened in the town, and the seafront became run down. It's easy to forget how lovely parts of the town and the surrounding area are. My daughter and I went to a beach the other evening. It is less than a mile and a half from my front door, and yet, because it's on the other side of the hill, it's easy to forget about it. When we visited, it was a fabulous summer's evening. The tide was in and the sunset was stunning. Unlike the busy main beach in the town, this one was hardly populated. We saw only a handful of people. Few enough that we nodded and said hi as we passed people. It was clear enough for us to see the birds in the top of the trees on the headland and the derelict Victorian pier in the distance. Needless to say, my daughter and I took some photos. Here's one.

Light Trails

After a serious illness about ten years ago, I made a few changes. We moved into a bigger house, which increased our outgoings, I left my job and did a full-time degree course in English literature, which reduced my income, and sent two of my children to an expensive school. You can't take it with you, right? I don't regret any of this, but of course in the end our financial recklessness came home to roost. A few years ago we had to tighten our belts hugely. In order to pay bills and debts, we had to sell everything we could: Books, guitars, TVs, and of course my camera. All of which is a verbose way of explaining why I haven't posted any photos on the blog since October 2010. Now I have a new camera, so a few weeks ago Sophie, my daughter, and I went out to photograph light trails. Here's one of the resulting images.