Tag: night photography

April 29th – I couldn’t resist hopping over to Silver Street and checking out the canal view at night, also a familiar winter haunt. I adore this spot at night, and things are changing here now; soon, houses will be built on the old market place, and much of the empty feeling here at night will disappear.

I love the urbanity of this place at night; the combination of steel, water, hard surfaces and sodium and LED light. This spot confirms to me continuously that there is indeed beauty in the most mundane of situations, not matter how plain we might consider them. 

You just need the right time, the right angle, and an open mind.

April 29th – I’d been out for a ride late in the afternoon and returned when night had fallen. On a frankly uninspiring photographic day, I spotted Morris, the Brownhills Miner as I came back through town.

I never liked the mix of white and blue lights they chose to illuminate this remarkable sculpture with, but now some of them have burnt out, the lighting looks a lot better: less operating theatre harsh and more industrial darkness, as if Morris was being lit by the ghost light of the welds that created him.

Still love every single stainless steel segment of him (and there are hundreds – just look!)

April 28th – On my return, I needed fresh air so shot out around the canal and common at dusk.

It was one of those evenings when the sky was a sort of luminous blue, and it was really quite still.

I love how eerie the canal and particularly the old cement works bridge at the Slough is at this time of day. Just the tonic after a very hectic day.

March 31st – Also seeming to prosper at the moment is the Shire Oak, a pub that up until the last change of stewardship last year was experiencing difficult times. After a period of closure, the lights are back on and welcoming in the dark of the night.

The place always seems busy and I’ve not heard anyone with anything bad to say about the place.

Must take a trip up the hill sometime and try it out.

March 31st – It was a fairly decent day, but an appointment in Birmingham meant riding my bike was impractical, so the only bike action I saw was an errand into Stonnall just after nightfall.

Stonnall, amazingly, still manages to support two pubs within very close proximity – the Old Swan and the Royal Oak. Both are decent houses and popular, and it’s remarkable they get the business they do in what is, effectively, a small village.

Long may they continue.

March 14th – I’d had to pop to Birmingham for a late afternoon appointment and caught the train back to Blake Street, prepared for an arduous winch back uphill to Brownhills. 

I wasn’t expecting the sunset to be quite as wonderful as it was. Little Aston was magical in the gathering dusk. Ah, those wonderful chimneys!

March 13th – This is a terrible photo, and sorry about that, but the mood I was in precluded concentrating on image quality; but the subject did very much cheer me up. On the way home, I rode up Shire Oak Hill from Stonnall in the dark. Since I was tired and not 100%, I rode up the pavement, as I feared my speed would not keep with the traffic. It was then I noticed them.

Loads of clumps of beautiful, white spring snowflakes – leucojum vernum- which are very like snowdrops, but the blooms are more bell shaped, the plants taller, with more foliage. Each flower has tiny green tips to the petals which the harshness of the flash sadly stripped away in the photo.

These gorgeous flowers grow in increasing numbers in this spot every year and they always surprise me. Today, on this dark and weary night, they were a real tonic.

March 12th – Perhaps unwisely, I continued on a ride I’d done many times – Down through Stonnall, Shenstone Woodend, Canwell, then to Hints, Hopwas and Whittington via the canal; from there back over Common Barn and the heath to Weeford and back home via Shenstone. It’s a short ride. I know it like the back of my hand.

I struggled and fought. 

At Shenstone on the way home, it felt like I’d never reach home. When I did get there, I was in bed well before midnight.

All this was a shame, as spring was showing the way; lambs were in the fields, the weeping willows were coming into leaf and daffodils marked every verge, hedgerow and garden. It really was beautiful.

Shame I felt so rotten.

March 11th – I wasn’t feeling well. An unpleasantly off-colour feeling had been descending over me for a few weeks. I ached. I felt dizzy. Something wasn’t right.

I grabbed a takeaway on the way home and shot from Clayhanger to Brownhills over the Spot Path and common – where, despite my fun, I found the migrating amphibians – out in huge numbers enjoying the drizzle – charming and fascinating. I love frogs and toads.

I took care where I was riding, and noted creatures of all sizes and hues. Very one of them obeying the same seasonal imperative.

Nature has a way of pulling you up short.

March 3rd – A bad day when it barely stopped raining all day.

I had to be in Birmingham early, and took short rides in the morning and early evening. The weather was foul, and my mood little better.

Thankfully, good news, a mind at rest and the company of a very good friend helped no end.

Some days make you glad they’re over.