What A Difference A Day Makes

After the awful weather over the last few days it was great to wake up to a warm sunny morning. I needed to go into town to stock up on essentials, have a film developed, and donate a box of kitten food to my neighbour who’s feeding the feral cats that have camped out in her garden. Managed to take a few photographs on the walk in.

Sunshine & Leaves

Tranquility Seats

A Bit Of Colour

A Bit Of Texture

Renovations In The Market Place

Took this as a 2 shot vertical panorama

Building On The Circle

There’s a lot of building going on in the city at the moment, unfortunately most of it is bland apartment blocks, no doubt this will be the same !

Thursday Doors – 20-07-17

Here’s my “Thursday Doors” contribution for the excellent Norm 2.0 Blog.

I haven’t been out on a door shoot for quite a while, but on my walks around the town I’ve been collecting images of random doors that have caught my eye. Some of them are from quite a while back.

Daffodil Door

Mind How You Go !

Boot & Shoe Operatives Union, Rear Door

The front of this building is really good and can be seen here

Drama Society

Not Long For This World.

Hosiery Door

Shades Of Green

One Of My Favourite Factory Doors

This is the door to a former hosiery factory of S D Strettons and Sons Limited, fortunately it’s been Grade II listed. The company I used to work for had part of this building as their Personal Finance centre.

At The Other End Of The Strettons Building !!!!

What a shock, the entrance has been glam’d up unlike me and my photo buddies, that’s me on the left. My buddy took this shot on his La Sardinia film camera.

Quick Walk To Town

19-07-17

Yesterday I needed to top up cat food supplies (very important) and cake supplies for me ! So I took a quick walk to town, the weather wasn’t bad if a bit breezy. Took the Sigma with me to get a few shots if anything caught my eye.

Hi Five

Foot Pain

Purple Haze

The hanging baskets outside the cathedral were looking good.

Leafy

Not sure why I like this, possibly the leaves contrasting with the modernish building.

Prismatic

No idea what this thing is supposed to do, looked through it at all angles but all I saw was a blur, not the kaleidoscope effect I was expecting.

Thursday Doors

29-06-17

Here’s my “Thursday Doors” contribution for the excellent Norm 2.0 blog.

I went into town today to meet up with my photo walk buddies not really intending to do a door walk. The weather was cold and drizzly (nearly turned the heating back on) so not that good for taking photographs, but after a cup of coffee and a catch up we made our way to the old castle area of the town and the Newarke Houses museum.

Museum Gateway & Entrance

I used to visit this museum as a young kid, mainly to see the Daniel Lambert exhibit, he was once the heaviest person in England. Next Friday they are having a talk about historic Leicester so we are going to combine this with another photo walk.

Museum Door Detail

Castle Gateway


They think the gateway dates from the fourteenth century. The furthest building you can see through the gateway used to be a courthouse, when I was at printing college we went to the public gallery to watch a hearing as part of social studies.

Houses Through The Gateway (and doors)

St Mary De Castro Church

There’s some interesting history about the church here. There used to be a spire on the church but it had to be taken down when it became unsafe.
After this shot the battery in my camera gave out so I had to use my mobile for the next few.

Around The Graveyard

The walls are part of the old castle and apparently the holes are where they used to point canons (armory not ecclesiastical) through.

Grave Monuments

Gateway

Finally I couldn’t resist this gate at the side of the museum.

Thursday Doors

15-06-17

The weather has been so unpredictable this year but it finally seems to have settled a little. Managed to get out and about this week on a couple of days in between the chores. Here’s my (late) eclectic contribution to Norm 2.0 “Thursday Doors” blog.

Fleur Enjoying The Warmth

Met up with my PhotoBuddies on Tuesday for a coffee and a walk around some of the older parts of the city (Leicester).

Louvre’s 

This is very near to where the old Great Central Railway bridged it’s way into the station. I’ve decided I like louvre’s.

Underneath The Arches

These two guy’s were more than happy to pose for a photograph outside their Engineering Co. which sits under the old railway arches. We had a good chat about how the area had changed over the years. I’ll pop back next week and drop them in a print of this photo.

S R & S 1919

I’ve tried to find out what S R & S was, but no luck. I guess a trip to the reference library and a look at some old trade directories might supply the answer. The whole area (Bath Lane) had a lot of engineering companies and foundries in it’s heyday, it’s now becoming an apartment block zone !

Peeling

Tucked Away

The next few are from yesterday’s (Thursday) trip to town.

This shop at the top of the Market Place is being restored, it’s a lovely old shopfront.

Knight & Garter

This pub has been just been totally restored, I was tempted to go in and try the beer but I had jobs to do at home.

Bowling Green Street
 
I’ve walked past this lovely doorway countless times, never really took much notice. But it’s been restored and is now a restaurant. Can’t find much information about the building other than it’s Grade 11 listed and possibly the old Water Board offices.

Thursday Doors

01-06-17

Thursday Doors and Street Art might be a better title for my contribution to the excellent Norm 2.0 blog, do click through and check out some of the great contributions.

Was completely oblivious that last weekend there was a street painting event “Bring The Paint” in our cultural quarter, just as I had no idea the Queen was visiting my home town in April. I don’t use social media very much, just Instagram, really gone off facebook where apparently information about the event abounded !!!!

I had arranged to meet up with a couple of friends for a Photowalk on Tuesday and much of the street art was still around.

Photo Buddies
 
I’ve known the guy on the far side of the street since 1970 when we were both at Leicester School of Printing and both had hair.

Counting this one as a door, and there’s a shopping trolley as a bonus.

This one even has an electricity substation behind it, one of my favourite subjects.

 
A lovely old gate.

And from the front.

The little window caught my eye on this one.

Roller Shutters

 

Music Venue Door

The Sound House apparently want to keep the street art on their building.

Old Factory Door

This is the side gate to the factory above.

Finally Some Neglected Doors

All of this artwork was completed over one weekend, most of it will disappear as the whole of the Cultural Quarter is in the process of being restored or rebuilt.

Blackbirds, Holly Tree, My Cats & A Box of Prints

Blackbird alarm calls got me up and out into the garden, I knew there was a nest in my Holly tree. With the weather being so poor earlier on this year I never managed to give the tree a good pruning, a painful process (for me that is), the leaves are very sharp. The cause of the alarm calls were my two cats who were mooching around the tree looking for somewhere out of the sun to settle down for a sleep.

So now I’m fretting for the well being of the Blackbird chicks. I’ve talked to the the cats about them but they weren’t impressed. My old Tomcat (Orlando) never bothered about birds too much, but the girls are fascinated by them.

Later on I decided to do a bit more sorting out of the spare bedroom/ex darkroom and came across a box of prints I had forgotten about. They are all from infrared film, and were very tricky to print, but scanned in well.

North Wales

The ones above were taken on the way to Barmouth and Portmeirion.

Near Settle – Yorkshire


These were all taken on Kodak HIE infrared on my Olympus OM2n.

Old Footbridge, Rundale Pils, Latvia

This was taken on Konica IR750 film on my Rolleiflex in 1993. Rundale Palace has been beautifully restored now.