Category: photography

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Then and Now Take Two – Trinity Lane, Cambridge

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.

Now this has come to my attention I have started to intentionally take photographs of the same place.

I grew up in Cambridge, but moved away when I went to university in York. I remember rarely visiting the University of Cambridge as a youngster, why would I? However I did do some specialist maths classes at Trinity College, so would walk down Trinity Lane.

So on a recent visit to Cambridge I knew I had to take a photograph I knew I had taken before.

This is a photograph of Trinity Lane taken in April 2023 with an iPhone 13.

Trinity Lane

This photograph was taken in July 2022 with an iPhone 13.

This was taken in the middle of the day in bright sunshine.

I stayed over in Cambridge back in January 2020 I took this photograph of Trinity Lane.

I took this with an iPhone 8 in late afternoon I did edit and enhance the image with Snapseed, but the iPhone was able to deal with the low light  conditions so much better.

It was back in March 2009 when I was at a JISC RSC Eastern event in Cambridge I did take the time the day before to walk around the town and took this photograph of Trinity Lane.

It was taken in the early evening with a Sony DSC-W53 camera, which to be honest struggled with the low light conditions.

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Then and Now Take Two – 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.

Back at Cabot Circus this week (April 2023) I took this photograph.

Cabot Circus

I have taken photographs of this view before. 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.

I took this photograph 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.

This photograph was taken on the 26th November 2022.

It would appear others also like this view.

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Then and Now Take Two – Liverpool Big Wheel

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 was in Liverpool recently, and I reflected I have been to Liverpool quite a few times, not as many as Manchester or London, but certainly a fair few times. What I did feel though was that I wasn’t as familiar with Liverpool as I was with parts of Manchester and London. I think part of that reason is I was last in Liverpool in August 2019 staying close to the University of Liverpool. I also went to the ALT Conference in Liverpool two years earlier in September 2017, again this was up by the university campus.

Back in February 2015 we were on holiday in the North-West and we spent a day visiting Liverpool, spending time around the Albert Dock and visiting the Museum of Liverpool. I took this photograph of the big wheel one evening. It was taken with an iPhone 6 Plus.

So when I was in Liverpool for a conference in the Royal Albert Dock area, I went back to the Museum of Liverpool to take this photograph with an iPhone 13, obviously I took this photo during the day and not in the evening.

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Then and Now Take Two – Museum of Liverpool

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 week I was in Liverpool, and I reflected I have been to Liverpool quite a few times, not as many as Manchester or London, but certainly a fair few times. What I did feel though was that I wasn’t as familiar with Liverpool as I was with parts of Manchester and London. I think part of that reason is I was last in Liverpool in August 2019 staying close to the University of Liverpool. I also went to the ALT Conference in Liverpool two years earlier in September 2017, again this was up by the university campus.

Back in February 2015 we were on holiday in the North-West and we spent a day visiting Liverpool, spending time around the Albert Dock and visiting the Museum of Liverpool. I took this photograph of the building on the damp wet day it was back then. It was taken with an iPhone 6 Plus.

So when I was in Liverpool for a conference in the Royal Albert Dock area, I went back to the Museum of Liverpool to take this photograph with an iPhone 13.

The scupltures are still there, but the bin has gone “missing”.

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Then and Now Take Two – Birmingham

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.

Next door to the ICC in Birmingham is a canal and there is a bridge across there from Brindley Place, and it would appear quite often when crossing the bridge I would take a photograph down the canal looking towards the what was the NIA (National Indoor Arena) and is now known as the Utilita Arena Birmingham.

I have over the years taken a photograph from the bridge. This was the view in May 2011 in the early evening.

In the preceding years the NIA had undergone refurbishment and renovation and had had a glass facade added. It was renamed the “Barclaycard Arena” in November 2014 after Barclaycard won the naming rights. This was the view in March 2015 over lunchtime.

Here we are four years later in October 2019 in the morning.

This photograph was taken in March 2020, also in the morning.

I wasn’t in Birmingham in 2021 due to lockdown, but was back in March 2022.

This is the scene in the morning.

This is the scene in the evening.

My most recent visit was in March 2023.

Canal

It’s quite surprising how little has changed over the twelve years between the photographs.

It would also not surprise you that I have a similar set of photographs looking the other way…

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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.