Cover Stories

Another couple of my photos have made it onto the covers of books (via Arcangel Images).  This time the upside-down Kibble Palace fishes are on the cover of the Dutch translation of Leaving Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, and me and the dressmaker's dummy (with the addition of an Irish dancing frock) are on The Last Days of the National Costume by Anne Kennedy.  It's always really exciting to see my photos getting to be part of books, even if it's a trifle odd to be on the cover of one wearing only a pair of knickers...  

Highland Fling

I got the chance to go along to another social media call at Scottish Ballet  on Saturday.  This time at the Theatre Royal to watch part of a class for the dancers before the matinee performance of "Highland Fling", a Matthew Bourne ballet based on "La Sylphide" which I'd managed to get along to the evening before.  It's a wild, funny, tartan-drenched affair with drugs, tarot cards and sylphs like zombie fairies.  The Glasgow run has finished, but the company are on tour with it round Scotland at the moment, so if it's on near you you should definitely go and see it.

 Rehearsal pianist (and very tartan scenery)

Scenes of levitation

My camera was struggling a wee bit with the lower light levels so I also took a few shots with an unreasonably long shutter speed for the motion-blur-colour effects... 

Fridge Angst

The fridges of the West End are very sensitive...

Western Windows

I'm still endlessly fascinated by scrunched-up reflections and tenement windows (and in this case, church ones) seem to scrunch particularly well.  

Gold Leaf

Re-inflation

After a long period of deflation the Inflatable Platypus has found a new home in the Boyd Orr...

Gutter 08 Launch

I had an unusually glamorous and exciting evening on Monday, when I was given the chance to read some poems at the Gutter 08 magazine launch at Aye Write. Also reading were Zoe Venditozzi, with an intriguing and unsettling story about a lost imaginary dog and John Jennett, with a haunting tale of gannets (or gugas) and their human neighbours. The session was chaired by Rob Newman (previously of the Mary Whitehouse Experience) who entertained us with tales of creepy landlords, the maze-knowledge consumption of nematodes and the hippocampi of London cab drivers.