Hot Numbers
28 July 2020
This mural used to attract buyers to the Hot Numbers Record Store in Kingston Street, Cambridge in the ’70s and ’80s.
After the store closed, the paintwork slowly faded, but it was repainted and added to around 2016/17 when the building was renovated.
There are plenty of pictures of this landmark around, but I wanted to give it a different treatment, so used a Lensbaby lens to create blur. Must be a Britpop joke in there somewhere…
Dead Centre of Town
1 June 2020
Another visit to Mill Road Cemetery at the weekend for a socially distanced walk amongst the ruined beauty. The overgrown areas are so much more photogenic than the more managed landscape where mown areas make space for sunbathing and picnickers.
Here on the outskirts of the cemetery the statuary seems to be drowning in a sea of nettles.
Abstract
25 May 2020
Back indoors again during the great lockdown (brooding pessimistically, in future this may be referred to as the first world lockdown – WL1). I recently watched a YouTube tutorial on using water-filled drinking glasses as ‘lenses’ to distort a geometric background. This was really easy to set-up so I had a go.
The background is a picture displayed on a high-definition monitor, so I didn’t even need to print it and the monitor provided all of the backlighting I needed. The glass is standing on a piece of very reflective plastic foil taken from the backing of a broken laptop screen. The foil isn’t flat so it produces an extra layer of distortion.
Excercise
6 May 2020
Staying in during lockdown is not much fun for humans, but for Elric any day without an opportunity to run around and let off steam is a tragedy.
It takes a shutter speed of 1/1600s to capture him as anything less than a black and white blur.
Happy Days
22 April 2020
Another picture from Brighton seafront, a week before lockdown in March. Just a month ago, yet it feels almost like the distant past.
How long will it be before crowds can flock back to the pier?
I’m looking forward to a return trip to The Old Ship Hotel as soon as it’s sensible.
