Category: photography

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Then and Now – The Campus

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook. I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. 

The Campus is a local community centre, that as well as a primary school, a specialist school, a library, a cafe, it also is used by local  groups.

I took this photograph on September 22nd 2022.

It was taken with an iPhone 13.

I wasn’t too surprised to find that I had taken a similar photograph four years earlier on October 16th 2018.

This photo was taken with the iPhone 6s Plus.

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Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Seven

Back in the 1990s when I was teaching at a college in Bristol, I use to undertake regular field trips to the Bristol Harbourside as part of a unit on urban regeneration. There was at the time to much happening down there after years of inaction that it was an ideal place to demonstrate the impact of investment and change of use. Bristol had been an important port for hundreds of years, this all came to a halt in the 1970s and regeneration plans were developed. Not much happened for twenty years, but in the last twenty years we have seen major regeneration of the area, massive building of offices, business, residential and entertainment, as well as visitor attractions such as at-Bristol (where incidentally I worked for a while when it opened).

During one of those field trips, I took my SLR camera with me, and digging around a box in the garage I found some more prints, which I have since scanned in. This is a new post on these images, you can find part one, part two, part three, part four,  part five and part six.

This is the car park next the Lloyds TSB building.

It has now been landscaped and is called Waterfront Square and is pedestrianised.

As I find and scan in more photos I will initially add them to this post.

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Then and Now, but not alone – Cabot Circus

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. The first of the posts in this series was of a council building in Manchester. I always thought I should give then and now photographs a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. Now this has come to my attention I have started to intentionally take photographs of the same place.

In November I posted one in this series about Cabot Circus at Christmas time having taken a photograph in December 2019 and then intentionally took a similar photograph in November 2022. What I hadn’t remembered was that I had taken identical or similar photographs before. Going through my collection and some old Flickr albums I found two more photographs which I blogged about earlier.

What I did note, looking for the date of construction that, this view was popular with other photographers and the construction company as well.

This was the artist impression of the shopping centre, and as you can see that this is the same view as the photographs I took.

Here is the view of the construction of the centre.

Final preparations being undertaken prior to opening.

This is the opening day of the Cabot Circus centre.

So what about my photographs.

This photograph was taken not long after Cabot Circus had opened. The shopping centre had opened on 25th September 2008, this photograph was taken on the 21st October 2008.

Going through my collection I also had taken this similar photo on the 4th July 2016.

Three years later on December 8th 2019. I was on my way to do a pick up from the Vue Cinema, so I took a photograph of the festive Cabot Circus. Not realising I had taken similar photos before.

This photograph was taken on the 26th November 2022. I remembered I had taken a photograph in the same location, so took this one.

So I had unintentionally taken three photographs of roughly the same place over an eleven year period.

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Then and Now Take Two – Manchester (again)

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.  The first of the posts in this series was of a council building in Manchester.

I always thought I should give then and now photographs a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. 

The first instance of this that came to my attention was in May 2019 when I went to Manchester.  I had recently been using Amazon Photos as an online backup service for my photographs. One of the nice features is that in the app it shows you photos from the same date in previous years So I was amused to find that two years ago to the day, not only had I being in Manchester, but I had also taken some photographs including this one the same council building I had taken.

So, back in Manchester in January 2023 and arrived in St Peters’ Square by tram I took the same photograph I had taken before.

This photo was taken in May 2022.

This photo was taken March 2022.

Here is the photograph from May 2019. I was staying in a hotel close to MediaCity, so caught the Metrolinktram into the centre of the city. I arrived in St Peter’s Square and decided to take a few photographs, including this one of a council building.

This was the photograph I had taken in May 2017.

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Then and Now – Cabot Circus

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. The first of the posts in this series was of a council building in Manchester. I always thought I should give then and now photographs a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. Now this has come to my attention I have started to intentionally take photographs of the same place.

In November I posted one in this series about Cabot Circus at Christmas time having taken a photograph in December 2019 and then intentionally took a similar photograph in November 2022.

What I hadn’t remembered was that I had taken identical or similar photographs before. Going through my collection and some old Flickr albums I found two more photographs.

This photograph was taken not long after Cabot Circus had opened. The shopping centre had opened on 25th September 2008, this photograph was taken on the 21st October 2008.

I took some more photographs and at the time I was then approached by security who told me that this was against their rules. I thought this was bizarre. Was I taking photographs of the shops?

No!

Was I using my big Canon 400D with 75-300mm lens?

No!

Was I using my nice 50mm lens which I keep meaning to use more?

No!

Was I using my point and shoot Sony W35?

No!

What was I using?

I was using a Nokia N95 phone!

I was surprised to be asked to stop. Weird policy. Of course once more people had more phones they stopped enforcing the policy.

Going through my collection I also had taken this similar photo on the 4th July 2016.

Three years later on December 8th 2019. I was on my way to do a pick up from the Vue Cinema, so I took a photograph of the festive Cabot Circus. Not realising I had taken similar photos before.

This photograph was taken on the 26th November 2022. I remembered I had taken a photograph in the same location, so took this one.

So I had unintentionally taken three photographs of roughly the same place over an eleven year period.

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Then and Now Take Two – Cabot Circus Christmas Changes

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. The first of the posts in this series was of a council building in Manchester. I always thought I should give then and now photographs a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. Now this has come to my attention I have started to intentionally take photographs of the same place.

This photograph was taken on the 26th November 2022.

I remembered I had taken a photograph in the same location, back on December 8th 2019. I was on my way to do a pick up from the Vue Cinema, so I took a photograph of the festive Cabot Circus.

I also wrote about it back then as well and in that post I used an image I found  searching Flickr from December 2012. It would seem I am not alone in taking photographs from that vantage point outside House of Fraser.

Cabots Circus by David X Mitchell via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Back then I wrote about the changes between the two images.

Its interesting to see the differences. Cafe Rouge has gone and has been replaced by Five Guys. I noticed recently that Giraffe had closed and the unit was now a Slim Chickens. On the ground floor was was SoHo (which has moved around the corner) is now a Tortilla and a Typo. In 2012 Patisserie Valerie was still open, today it’s closed and boarded up.

Since 2019, Krispy Kreme have taken over the Patisserie Valerie location.

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Then and Now – Glasgow Airport Again

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook. I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. 

I posted a Then and Now photograph I had taken at Glasgow Airport in November 2022, I had also taken another photograph on the same day, which was, you guessed it, very similar to one I had taken four years ago.

I took this photograph upon arrival Glasgow Airport on April 9th 2018, It was the view out of a window on the way from the arrival gate to the exit.

I was back up in Glasgow on the 14th November 2022 and took this very similar photograph.

It was not a planned copy shot, I just wanted to photograph the plane.

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Then and Now – Glasgow Airport

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook. I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. 

I took this photograph upon arrival Glasgow Airport on October 20th 2017. It was the view out of a window on the way from the arrival gate to the exit.

I was back up in Glasgow on the 14th November 2022 and took this very similar photograph.

It was not a planned copy shot, I just wanted to photograph the plane.

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Then and Now Take Two – Bristol Airport

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. The first of the posts in this series was of a council building in Manchester. I always thought I should give then and now photographs a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. Now this has come to my attention I have started to intentionally take photographs of the same place.

I took this view of Bristol Airport from the departures lounge on an early morning in August 2016.

I took a similar picture in February 2017.

I was back at Bristol Airport on the 14th November 2022, so I took a photograph from the same vantage point.

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Then and Now Take Two – Edinburgh Tram

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. The first of the posts in this series was of a council building in Manchester. I always thought I should give then and now photographs a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. Now this has come to my attention I have started to intentionally take photographs of the same place.

This photograph was the Airport Tram stop in Edinburgh. The Edinburgh Tram started running in May 2014.

Though in the early 2000s I travelled to Edinburgh a fair bit, by the 2010s I had stopped travelling up there. In the 2000s I would catch the bus from the airport to the centre. On the 1st December 2014 I made a trip to Edinburgh for a conference, it my first opportunity to travel on the then new tram. I took a photograph from the Airport Tram stop down the line.

Of course you take a photograph and then think nothing of it.

Five years later I am heading off to Edinburgh once more,  I hadn’t been to Edinburgh in the intervening period, though I had been to Glasgow a fair few times. Arriving at Edinburgh Airport and heading towards Haymarket the obvious thing was to take the Tram. Waiting at the stop I decided to take a photograph….

Not quite the same photograph, but pretty close.

I was back in Edinburgh in November 2019 as well, but didn’t take a photograph of the Tram stop.

I was back in Edinburgh in November 2022 and I intentionally took this photographs from the same perspective on the 16th November 2022.

It’s actually more central than the other two and it was taken directly into the sun!