What I like about this picture is that in all the time i have been in Manchester and all the times i have climbed on Snowdonia I never knew that the range could be seen from Manchester… or in this case, East Manchester / Stockport.  The power plant is Fiddlers Ferry in Widnes, and to the left in the background you can see the mountains of Snowdonia

a distinct lack of updates is hardly new on this blog but there have been a few life changing events in the way that needed taking care off.

Yesterady I took a day out to work on a new series, a sneak preview of which can be seen on my flickr stream, but I am mostly experimenting with b&w – i find it works best under harsh mid-day sun as in the pic above, taken in Portugal a couple of weeks ago

Dunluce Castle, Co Antrim

This was my local castle- I have been trying to figure out some new software for dealing with my back catalogue of photographs and came across this pic from years back – not much photoshop on it other than levels – the sun was setting so the castle walls had that reddy glow off them, there was some more scaffolding on the walls to the left, but i removed any that was against the sky.

Uther Pendragon was reputed to have found and battled a large dragon-like serpent while in Cumbria – perhaps this was the reason he decided to found his kingdom in Mallerstang. Pendragon Castle, situated four miles south of Kirkby Stephen, is built on what’s thought to be the site of Uther’s castle, which would have been built some 600 years earlier. According to legend, Uther tried to re-route the River Eden to create a moat for the castle.

Pendragon Castle itself is now in ruins, having been built in the 1100’s by Hugh de Morville – one of the knights who killed Thomas of Canterbury.

Did you know that this weekend you are statistically highly likely to have someone tell you that you are statistically more likely to have a white easter than a white Christmas?

Is there a way of illustrating just how cold a place is through a photograph? I’m sure the masters of photography could do it, but for me, i’ll just have to get a picture of a brass monkey crying but believe me when i say New York 5.30am in the snow is a cold cold place

first time to leave Manhatten (the last time i was in NY i don’t think i left Brooklyn) to go over to Jersey to try to capture the sunset on the skyline….. like an absolute eidgit I left the adapter for my tripod in the hotel room so not able to get a real good panorama – beautiful spot, Hoboken, though.

It was particularly nice in the sunset because it seemed to give the skyline that yellowy 70s kodak feel – and if any city looks good in a 70s feel its this one. It is late now and that might not make sense.

and when the light finally fell – the lights were pretty great as well.

I have been pretty excited about the Museum of Modern Art, and it is pretty great – the chance to see these Warhols, Pollocks, Ansel Adams and Monet pieces to name but a handful, is amazing.

Close up of Jasper Johns ‘ Flag’

Interesting as well there are some pieces I really wanted to see for myself that didn’t disapoint – Jackson Pollocks stuff has such deep layers that you can never really appreciate in photograph form (interestingly I find it very hard to look at a Jackson Pollock without humming some Stone Roses songs) – and some is disapointing…. i think that too many prints on the walls of student flats has probably ruined Pablo Picasso for me.

And, there is some stuff I just do not get

Robert Ryman – ‘Twin’

McEldowney, Thomas ‘Wall of MOMA’ 2008

Top of the Rock – Click for huge

Ok, i caved in – i like to think I am not a particularly consumerist person – but you try having a 5 year old craptop with a busted screen and  living around the corner from a 24hr Apple store without caving in… so this is my first post from a shiny new macbook – and its a thing of beauty.

Thing is… and this is a little embarassing… i’m not completely sure how to use it – this morning it told me that I had filled the hard drive already… not good – turns out that iphoto and aperture love to fill the HD – so i’m not too sure how to use it – i’ve been trying to download a trial version of photoshop until i get home but thats proving unsuccessful as well – so it will have to be un-manipulated photies for a couple of days.

One of the difficulties, if you can call it that, about New York is that there is so much ‘obvious’ photography, landmarks, streets, statues and bridges that are photographed from every conceivable angle — Brooklyn Bridge (above), the Flat Iron Building, Grand Central (both below) photographed by everyone to the point where you wonder if there is any point – but its impossible not to photograph them…. a million people have probably taken the image above, and a million more will probably take it in the future – people with bleeding edge digital cameras, with disposable cameras, home-made pinhole cameras, all were out today trying to put their own slant on the same familiar lines of Brooklyn Bridge.

Speaking of impossible the screen on my laptop is truly goosed – 1/8 of the screen is a solid white bar, reducing further the resolution of my already battered old laptop. There is an apple store around the corner from my hotel.. i think i know where this one is going, i have seen Vista, i don’t like it. Photoshop CS3 doesn’t run under Linux – another acolyte for apple-fandom awaits.