Seagulls: Another photo from the same day, not much point in making a new post. Bit of cropping, minor level editing in Photoshop.

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Yesterday, there was a little bit of snow around, but not too much. There was some forecast for the afternoon, but generally it looked as if it was OK. Nope. At around 10.30 Mum phoned me and told me that it was beginning to get a little heavy up in North Molton, and that I should make sure I’m careful to get home. At around the same time, a global email was sent to all staff informing us that because of the weather in Barnstaple, they were closing and sending people home. It was suggested then that I should probably go home myself, so about an hour and a half in to my second day back at work I started back home.

To be fair, the weather was quite bad and it was probably good that I went home and there were some pretty heavy spots of snow on the Link Road on the way back. I did video this – as well as my journey into work yesterday – but the video is upside down (because of the way that I attach a camera to my car windscreen) and will need a bit of work on it before I view it here.

So today, a day off. Most people would be glad I suppose, but not necessarily me. OK, an expected unexpected day off (it is unexpected, but it was expected at the same time. Confusing I know, but I assume you understand what I mean) is usually a good thing. But after two weeks being bored at home doing nothing to have a further couple of days – tomorrow will probably end up being the same – it’s not really for me.

Anyway – I did get some photographs around North Molton earlier on of the snow. It’s been quite deep really as you can see in a couple of the shots – over 6 inches; I went to measure it to tell somebody what the depth was but it was only a 15cm ruler and I lost it in the snow. It’s still in my front garden under the snow.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/richie.g/SnowJan2010

:thumb137628756: The Life of a Leaflet. This person was distributing leaflets outside of Oxford Circus station on the Underground.  Many people – myself included I’m afraid – ignored her as we walked past as she thrust the leaflets into our paths.  Some people took them, immediately dropped them on the pavement (if you look under the distributors foot there’s one there too) where they were trampeled over by the hounds of people trying to get into the station.  Others ended up squashed with their fallen comrades with the discarded drinks cans and cigarette butts on the steps into the station, to be (unphotographed) washed away and made soggy on the next rainfall (which happened that night).

:thumb137629793: Non Drying Paint. There are loads of these signs on walls around where my friend lives in London, and they always make me giggle inside when I see them.  Apparantly, the ‘non-drying paint’ is supposed to deter either people who are intending to climb the walls, or people who are intending to graffiti the walls.  I’m not entirely certain what non-drying paint is, so bear with me for a few moments while I Google it for you. A few moments later: Yes, indeed the non-drying paint is an anti-climb measure, and is supplied by this Australian company. Seems quite interesting really. Still got no idea how it works. Perhaps that’s the idea.

:thumb137630763: Don’t you forget about me. Don’t You Forget About Me / Don’t Don’t Don’t Don’t / Don’t You Forget About Me / Will you stand above me? / Look my way, never love me / Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling / Down, down, down / Will you recognise me? / Call my name or walk on by / Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling / Down, down, down, down (Extract from Don’t You (Forget about Me) by Simple Minds). So how many times do we see somebody sitting at the side of the road, in a shop doorway, or wherever and just walk past them? Do we forget about them within five minutes? Do we not even notice them any more? I also liked the symmetry that the bloke sitting in the middle of the bridge approach gave

:thumb137631464: Photographs of Photographers 6. OK, no photo set would be complete without at least one photo of somebody else taking a photo!  Actually, there were a lot more in this set that I haven’t got round to sorting out yet.  I believe that the backdrop for this photo would have been St Paul’s Cathedral.  I do have an intro to the Photos of Photographers (‘p-o-p’) series somewhere; might post that here sometime.

:thumb137632172: Bikes. A simple photograph taken outside the Cyber Candy shop near Covent Garden in London.  While waiting for my friend (who had gone into said shop for the third time that day), I just saw these bikes all lined up and took a photograph of them.  Actually, I took a few but this was the best one.  Unlike other pictures, this is exactly as its come out of the camera with no editing done at all except resizing.  Others usually have some post-production done on them in the GIMP.

That’s it for now.  All of the photographs here link to larger-size versions on my deviantART page where you will also find other photographs and some other stuff too.

(Later that same day…) And here’s more!

:thumb137645346: Art on the Underground. To celebrate 100 years of the ‘Roundel’ (London Underground’s iconic logo), TfL asked 100 artists to create 100 pieces of work (one each, not 100 each!) based on the Roundel. These are two of those pieces of work on posters in situ at Tottenham Court Road Underground Station. If you’re interested, you can see my ‘version’ of the Roundel which I’m using for my Tube Challenge for Tearfund charity thingy on the ‘Tube Challenging’ page.

:thumb137646635: Pipes. Also at Tottenham Court Road Underground Station, these are the steps down to the station with a maze of pipes and cables and other stuff in between them. Somewhere, somebody out there knows what each of these pipes and cables does, and where they’ve come from, and where they’re going…

This time we went to the nearby National Trust property, Knightshayes Court, followed by a quick jaunt to the Grand Western Canal.  As with the students, I took more photos at Knightshayes than the canal, but more importantly, today was the first day of using my brand new Nikon D60 DSLR camera, which is actually MINE!!! I no longer have to borrow cameras from work (having said that, I’m in London on Saturday and will probably borrow one of the J10 cameras if there’s one available as they’re littler and can fit in my pocket).  I’ve only been taking photos as a ‘photographer’ (of sorts) for about seven years now…

Anyway – photos.  Here you go.  Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/richie.g/KnightshayesGrandWesternCanal190309

So yesterday, after work at the Library, I was going to go to Barnstaple, but decided to head down towards Exeter, heading down the A377.  I stopped off at Eggesford railway station on the way, took some photographs round there, but as I couldn’t really be bothered to wait for a train to come (I’d have to wait there about forty minutes for that) I continued down to Exeter.

Last time I was at Exeter St Davids station, I had problems accessing the platforms to take photos (bloody ticket barriers) so decided to continue on.  It was while having my lunch at the Burger King at the M5 J30 services that I decided that I had never been to Honiton railway station so that is where I headed to next. When I got there, bizzarely I did see an ‘HST Stop’ sign on the tracks as I pulled into the station in my car, but even odder couldn’t actually find the sign when I got out to photograph it.  Again, I had a bit of time to wait until a train appeared, but it did and it was number 001 of the class City of Exeter. That information won’t be appreciated by any except any proper train afficondios out there (of which I’m not quite one yet!).

Anyway… Photos… here you go.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/richie.g/Railway140309EggesfordAndHoniton

And as it happens, I didn’t have any problems with the auto focus on this camera, so I’m not sure what the student was doing wrong…

Important note:The only reason that I borrowed this camera was because the student had reported it faulty, and it was last thing on a Friday evening. Had it been earlier in the week, I would have tested it on the college premises, maybe overnight if it was at the end of the day. Would another student require to borrow it, I would have done a quick test to see if I could replicate the problem, and, were it working, loan it to the student telling them there was a potential problem. I do not put my own – and other staff – wants ahead of those of students when it comes to loaning equipment out.

The minibus was a bit dodgy though, especially as Sharon had problems finding fourth gear on occasions, and any form of gradient steeper than 3% would tend to conk it out.  In fact, on the way back I was messing around with my phone as I was bored and set my Facebook status so it read ‘Richard isn’t sure that the college minibus will make it to the top of this hill’ and sent a couple of people text messages to that effect as well.

Anyway, of the 290-odd photos I took, I’ve managed to whittle it down to about fifty which will appear below for your viewing pleasure.  Enjoy. Photos include stuff which will (eventually) go into the larger ‘Bridges Project’ that was started while I was a student at college and also ‘Photos of People taking Photos’.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/richie.g/EdenProject120309

(There is a paragraph about this in Rob Grant’s book Incompetence but I can’t find it at the moment – if you have the book it’s in the Prologue which you will find after Chapter 2.)

I also found out this morning that it’s surprisingly fun to drive over. For reasons that still aren’t quite clear to me, I decided that I should continue with my normal ploy of turning off the Link Road and nip the rest of the journey to Tiverton on the back roads to avoid the traffic that usually builds up around the Bolham Road roundabout.

Anyway – here are some photographs. Again, taken on my phone and while some are from the inside of the car I was not driving at the time, again caught on the roadworks just south of Knowstone. I will probably at some point touch some of these photos up in Photoshop but these’ll do for the time being.

http://picasaweb.google.com/richie.g/MoreSnowMarch2009

It was still relatively OK though, but quite white outside. That was, until I got into work…

http://picasaweb.google.com/richie.g/SnowMarch09

(all photos taken on my phone, and honestly I was not driving while some of these were taken – there were traffic lights on the A361 which caught me up! Images hosted on Picasa)

Admittedly mainly this afternoon the weather down here has turned a bit so it’s a bit more snowy, but it’s not settling. I don’t think I could cope with another snow-day to be honest as I just get really bored. I’m just amazed at how different a few miles can make in the weather – although it was a little cold it still looked rather summery down here when I got here this morning!