Different Views…

The closer we get to the end of the Harborough project the more I have come to realise that this is my collection of images. It is not whether they properly reflect the area it is that they reflect what I saw. To understand this you have to understand how David and I work. We normally visit an area and then capture images that meet our needs: his image that will inspire a painting and my need is help create a coherent photo essay. The result of this is very very different. Yet to both us they make sense.

I guess what I am saying is that should you, dear reader, have wandered through the centre of Market Harborough yesterday you would have captured a series of images that would have been different to what either of us. They might have been better. They have been worse. Whatever the case they would have been your images in much as the same way these are mine.

It is the same with the words I have written. They are my ‘unedited ramblings’. They are not the anodised and americanised words that the WordPress AI insists would make this blog so much better. I am not an American and my language cannot be parsed to pass as one. Given everything that is going on at the moment perhaps it might be in everybody’s best interest that an American piece of software stop telling everyone else how to write.

(Note: since I wrote that last sentence the AI seems to have stopped showing what it thinks I should write…spooky. Do AI sulk?)

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Passenger Seat…

Damp late winter’s day in Harborough. What else is there to do but capture a couple of images out of the car’s window. Actually, there were many other things to do and perhaps I will post about that next time?

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As One Project Ends…

With a fair wind we might finish the Harborough Project before Easter. Might is the operative word here. My good friend David and I have been struck by a series of problems whilst trying to do just that. So perhaps Easter is a little hopeful. I hope not.

Anyway, time and tides and all that. So I have started my next project which is covering North West Leicestershire. Hopefully this will not take the five years that Harborough has taken to complete! yesterday I was in Whitwick, Swannington and Cole Orton.

The working title for this project is ‘Paradise Consumed’.

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Some Babble…

When is brunch brunch? Not sure but I went out for brunch this morning. It was one of those wonderfully dull days you get in February. It lacked the dark intensity of January and was… well February. Does this make sense? No. But brunch did. So that was fine.

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Splish Splash…

Frost and fog. A cold morning in the park. However, it does feel just a little different. Maybe wishful thinking on my part but there was a slight feel of the seasons turning.

Expect blizzards. Make for interesting photographs. Ummm not sure.

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Trainspotting…

Whenever I hear or read the word ‘Trainspotting”, I always hear the opening ‘Choose Life‘ monologue from the film of the same name. (BTW I don’t choose Heroin!). When I started to edit the image of the train I noticed Croft Hill dominating the background. Now this is not actually in Harborough District council area but it appears again and again in image after image. So I have decided to include it in the images I am creating for the Harborough project.

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The One That Got Away…

Sitting in a hide for an hour or so allows time to contemplate many things. How comfortable the bench starts to rise up the list of things that are important the longer you stay there. Today I spent sometime in a hide at Calke Abbey and apart from the bench becoming more uncomfortable I had an enjoyable time.

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Filling in the Blanks…

If its Sunday then it must be time to visit villages in Harborough that I have missed. Today it was Newton Harcourt. For anyone unfamiliar with Newton Harcourt it is a small village around 10 miles outside of central Leicester. Its only real claim to fame is you have to rich to live there. However, on nice, crisp winter Sunday afternoons it is also where a lot of people come to walk in the countryside. I did not know this and it came as something of a shock. No matter the light was worth all the frustrations caused by the people and especially their cars.

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Walking…

Walking through the centre of Leicester.

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Back to the Future…

I have started to work on my third iPhone book. It would be nice to pretend that I intended this as a series of books but that wasn’t the case. Last year, I made two books: Mono (see above) and Chroma. They were meant to be a complementary, stand-alone series. That was the plan. However, two new book projects have suggested themselves: Squared and Street. More on Street in a later post. For the moment I’m working on Squared.

Whilst editing the images I noticed that many of the very early images were created using the venerable Hipstamatic app. I have not used this app in years. Did it still work in 2025? Well the answer is yes. So this morning, whilst visiting one of my local coffee houses I grabbed a few images.

It did bring back some memories. Perhaps the best memory was that in the past. I used to be far more freewheeling with the images I captured with my iPhone. I am not like that now. Also I was not that bothered about image size. Today I tend to capture RAW images with my iPhone as opposed to the JPEG’s that Hipsta produced. (Which are tiny compared to the RAW files). Yet I find the Hipsta images more immediate which is very rewarding. So maybe I should go back to the future with my iPhone and see what happens. The only problem is that if I keep making square-shaped images with my iPhone, I’ll not finish the project. Thank goodness it is a vanity project. It has an audience of one. I can make up the rules as I go along.

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