Poetry in Motion

Poetry section in Waterstones in Glasgow, shot from the hip and run through OptikVerve Labs Trashcan setting for VirtualPhotographer. So it's not in focus or anything like that, but at least I didn't get thrown out this time...

Gardening

Run through OptikVerve Labs Trashcan setting for VirtualPhotographer.

Marmalade Skies

Curvature

Page-turner

Once more, with colour

Byres Road

Underground

Overground

The Poetry of Science

I was sent this link a couple of days ago by one of the few computer scientists I know who doesn't think writing poetry is akin to underwater-basketweaving. Actually, I find it's not dissimilar to writing code in a lot of ways. Except it usually doesn't make me want to scream and smash things...

River Festival again

The River Festival was back this weekend so the new camera and I went along. Unfortunately the weather was not as good as last year, hence these shots through my umbrella:

 

 

They opened both bridges for the tall ships to get through on their way back down the river. The announcement went something like this: "We will be opening both Bells Bridge and the Science Centre bridge in 10 minutes. If you are still on them, we're opening them anyway."

 

Bells Bridge swung open.

 

Science Centre bridge open.

 

Fantastic Viking longboat people. And their sheep. Sample of overheard conversation: "Come on Erik, we'll never get back to Scandinavia in time at this rate!"

 

Reflections.

 

Man showing off in a wee boat.

 

More reflections.

Then I went to chat to the people from the GalGael Trust who make traditional boats, aiming to revive old skills and give unemployed young men in the Govan area a sense of purpose and identity that's often missing in an area that used to be heavily involved in shipbuilding, but now suffers from wide-spread unemployment.

I'd heard one of the men from the group giving a brief talk at a presentation for Gaelic poet Derick Thomson and, being keen on boats, thought they might let me come along and take some photos of people working on them. Anyway, they said I certainly could or I could come along and help build boats! I'd thought it was only guys they had working on the project but apparently not...

Here are a few photos of a demonstration of swords and clothes and whatnot beside one of their boats (though I didn't get a very good shot of it).

 

 

 

 

Wood carving.

 

Very tall cyclist.

 

Vikings again!

 

"How would you like to be mutton stew?"

 

Stripy braces.

 

The Royalist heading for the open sea.

 

The Tenacious doing the same. Except they made rather more effort with the whole "setting sail" thing.

 

The Tenacious and the tower.

 

Weird bike thing with trumpets attached.

Swinging

I really must read the manual. Standing in the park telling your new camera to "Stop that!" as it autofocuses on the wrong thing is never a good look. Accidentally deleting several quite nice reflection photos is not helpful either...

New Camera

Me looking shifty with my new camera which finally arrived today. It's always harder than I expect to take photos in a mirror. Anyway, I'm away to RTFM now...

How to...

...build a hidden door bookshelf. If only I had a secret room to hide. (I tried to persuade Alasdair to do this for the door of his spare room when I was speaking to him earlier, but for some reason he felt the unusually thick wall between the living room and the kitchen might be a giveaway).

Ferry 'nough

I went over to visit Alison and Michael in their new house today, which meant another trip on the Renfrew Ferry (the excitement of it all!) There were no wannabe naked bampots this time, but I was approached by a guy who asked in very stilted tones if this was a tourist boat. It turned out he was from Glasgow but thought I must be a visitor (presumably he couldn't imagine why a local would be taking photos of the ferry). When I said I was from Renfrew he exclaimed "But you can't be, you're speaking English!"

Considering he seemed to have brought his visiting family for a day trip on the Renfrew Ferry, he wasn't in much of a position to criticise. A voyage of a minute and a half across 30 yards of water has limited entertainment value. (To be fair I think he might actually have got it confused with the Pride O' the Clyde).

The Renfrew Rose.

The ferry we're supposed to be scared of is that tiny wee boat at the bottom of the slipway. I suppose it comes further up when the river is higher, but the notice looks a bit ridiculous at the moment.


Burnt out pub.

Yoker triptych.

Flowers.

More flowers.

Me and the kitchen in a kettle.

Slightly cheating photo of the very lovely yellow dining room (can you see the join?)

Never Mind The Quality Feel The Width

I was out in Glasgow trying out my new wide-angle lens yesterday. It's a nice lens, but it became clear pretty quickly that I have bugger-all idea of what to do with it: there's so much stuff in the frame. And it's all so far away (or maybe small). Anyway, here are a few of the better shots.

The City Chambers and the centotaph and that-man-on-the-big-pillar-whose-name-I-can-never-remember-although-someone-told-me-last-year-in-a-comment-on-another-post...

St. George's Church

MoMA in Royal Exchange Square. That damned statue never has its cone on when I'm there.

An elderly couple in George Square who were sitting on the bottom of a statue of Burns listening to what sounded like The Greatest Hits of Jimmy Shand on a casette player they'd brought with them. I'm not sure if they thought this was simply appropriate behaviour in Glasgow, or were hoping a wee ceilidh might break out.

Woman sitting on the steps of Borders in a nice coat. I hope the monster didn't get her.

Don't know why there was an up-ended infinity symblol projected on this wall on Buchanan Street, but I expect it has a deeply mystic significance.

Bright reflections. I'm always trying to get the perfect Buchanan Street shot, but there are so many variations in the light I never quite manage it :-(

Greatly reduced piper.

Street shot. Click on it to get the slightly bigger version where you can see the people better.

Buskers on Sauchiehall Street.

Good news for a change.

Shadows.

Bus.