Green Market

This is the Green Market in the Eldon Square shopping centre, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. It contained many small stalls, such as a cobblers, florists, sweet shop, and the Fish market to name a few. I assume it opened at the same time at the main shopping centre, 1977, hence why 30 years on it looks pretty dated, brown tiles being long out of fashion. These pictures were taken on Friday (26 Jan), about an hour before it closed for good, to make way for the re-development of the area and a new Debenhams. So I thought a few snaps to capture a "70s indoor market style" of the past were in order, the available light requiring a high ISO and hence post image smooth processing. The Green market stalls are now moving to the Grainger market across the road, or equally as close, a new Green market in another corner of Eldon Square.

Happy new year!

Remember, a dog is not just for Christmas, save some for boxing day! The flat screen TV on the other hand is good all year round, and doesn't need walking 3 times a day in the rain. This, I conclude, is why it gets put on a nice cabinet in the lounge and not in a box under the stairs.

Happy 2007 to all

Christmas 2 for 1

Two pictures this time of nothing particularly special taken from my "December misc" folder. The thing I love about autumn, as illustrated in these shots, is the skies you can get. When it isn't cloudy they are often crystal clear - at sunset giving a perfect transition from midnight blue in the East to orange in the West, or with a low sun illuminating things in a beautiful golden glow.

Top was from a Newcastle ramble over the central motorway A167(M) and town moor, long exposure with no tripod. Below shows on of my favorite things, a country eatery back home in Lancashire, with horses thrown in for good measure. I had fish and chips for my lunch there today :)

Homeward bound

Not taken any pictures recently and prob wont for a while, so i dug up this from my archives. Taken back in October on a very windy day, the RNLI lifeboat Spirit of Northumberland powers its way back to home to Tynemouth station, rounding South Shields pier. The wind was deceptively strong (id estimate force 8*), but being westerly it was coming off the land hence the low wave heights near shore. A look at the spray coming off the bow wave shows just how strong it was, whipping the water back, and out to sea plenty of white froth. When you consider the "7" class lifeboat is only 17m long (tiny when anything under 100m is classed as 'small craft' at uni) , its sea-keeping abilities are most impressive and design for the harshest weather possible are an amazing feat of naval architecture. One of my lecturers told us recently about how lifeboats were, at certain conditions, designed to be inherently unstable, which is what allows them to self right if they capsize - some seriously clever maths (who says it has no use) was scribbled on the board!

* Force 8, according to my lecture notes is

"moderately high waves of greater length, edge of crests begin to break into the spindrift. The foam is blown in well marked streaks along the direction of the wind - mean wind speed of 37 knots" (around 40mph)

Steel Grey

Apologies for slacking with the updates but ive been busy with serious school work and an "educational" trip to Holland. The latter was most interesting, seeing the world class MARIN research facilities , the unimaginably gargantuan Port of Rotterdam, and two nights in Amsterdam (one during an England away match). Despite this, the trip was pretty abysmal for photography, with it being banned for security and commercial reasons in the MARIN complex, and through a coach window at Rotterdam - also you cant take pics of the ladies in the red light district for those of you interested!

We went over on the Ferry (and got an engine room visit) from North shields to Ijmuiden courtesy of DFDS seaways on the King of Scandinavia which was great fun. The picture was taken approaching Holland in the morning, sailing towards the docks which have a large steel works alongside. To try and make the photo a bit more interesting and atmospheric ive converted the dull colours into a B+W photo on the comp. I have just realised its a month till christmas!

Bang!

Yesterdays explosive action in Geordie land! IS lens in action again..

Somewhere else?

Last weekend i had a trip out before my railcard expired - from now on most trips will be to the library. The pictures above were both taken from the train doin around 100mph (1/500 sec). As you can see the motorway sign has been paint shopped but i left the junction # ... so question is which motorway and whats the river to the left of it?