Posts

Posted on

Then and Now Take Two – Manchester

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 having come back to Manchester in March 2022, the first time since that time in May 2019,  it was a bit of a no brainer to take the same photograph again.

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.

Posted on

There is going to be a Lego Back to the Future DeLorean

Inspired by the DeLorean car seen in the time travelling adventure film franchise from Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment, the LEGO Back to the Future Time Machine set allows builders to create the car from either the first, second or third film. What’s more, it comes complete with a light-up flux capacitor, a box of plutonium, Marty’s hoverboard and LEGO minifigure versions of Doc Brown and Marty McFly.

So if you like Lego and you like Back to the Future, then you are in luck as Lego are releasing a large scale model of the DeLorean. You can construct it as it was in the first film, or the flying version from the second film, or the one in the third film with the 1950s style tyres. Alas no rail version as seen at the end of the third film.

Spoilers.

I do wonder if Lego will release that time travelling train that Doc has?

Posted on

Then and Now – ICC

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 first instance of this that I noticed was in May 2019 when I went to Manchester. It only really came to my attention that I was doing this a lot, when checking the Places function on the Apple Photos Mac App that I could see I had taken the same photograph of the same thing just years apart!

As I started publishing this series of blog posts I am now a little more conscious about taking photographs and in some cases I am intentionally taking a similar photograph of what I have photographed before. Even so, now and then I find I am unconsciously taking similar photographs.

I took this photo of the inside of the ICC in Birmingham on April 15th 2008.

I have been going to the ICC for conferences for years now, so it wasn’t too surprising to find that earlier this month on the 9th March 2022 I took this photograph of the ICC not realising that fourteen years ago I had taken a similar shot.

I hadn’t even planned this shot, I had had a text from my son asking about my day and where I was in Birmingham, so I took this photo as I walked to a sessions and sent it to him.