Author: jamesclay

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Then and Now Take Two – North Lookout

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 the 1970s and 1980s I would visit Aldeburgh a lot, as we had family there. Having moved to the South West, I have rarely visited there in the last twenty five years.

We had a family holiday in November 2008, it was windy, cold and damp.

I did take a few photographs, using my DSLR Canon EOS400D including this picture of the North Lookout on the beach.

It was the location of the original lifeboat station.

On a recent return visit to Aldeburgh in January 2024 I took a similar photograph using an iPhone 13.

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Cheddar after the rain

I had a walk around Cheddar after the rain and the Cheddar Yeo stream, which is usually still and clear. This time however it was much more a raging torrent.

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Then and Now – Never Let Me Go

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.

This is a slight different version of the posts I do, as these are then and now photographs of a location used in the film Never Let Me Go which was released in 2010.

The lives of three friends, from their early school days into young adulthood, when the reality of the world they live in comes knocking.

The film was set in an alternate 1980s UK. 

Various scenes were filmed in Clevedon and Weston-super-Mare.

Once scene was set in the Regent Cafe on 13 Regent St, Weston-super-Mare BS23 1AP.

What I always find amusing was that though the film was set in the 1980s they didn’t need to dress the cafe to fit in. Even the interior cafe shots in the film were taken in the cafe, and that was how it was back when it was filmed in 2009.

The cafe closed after the covid pandemic, and has been replaced by Burger Barn.

I took photographs of the Burger Barn, the cafe when it was closed in 2023 and the original Regent Cafe in March 2013. All images cropped to match film scene.

Burger Barn photograph January 2024.

Regent Cafe closure February 2023.

Regent Cafe March 2013.