No men allowed?

Is this perhaps a little too detailed? I feel a bit like they're banning men in cuban heels rather than pedestrians in general...

Happy days of Glastonbury

The last time I was on holiday, we were at Glastonbury. A totally amazing time, beautiful weather and fantastic company. I can't wait til next year...

Morgan Arcade, Cardiff

Cardiff has some beautiful arcades, there since the turn of the 20th century with fabulous architecture and intricate ironwork and glass roofs. In weather like today's, they are wonderful to wander around with the sunshine pouring in and casting shadows on the flagstone floors.

Alarm!

Fire alarm in the building where the rest of my team works. The building that time forgot... 

Wild sunflowers in the meadow

A meadow of long grass, sprinkled with wild sunflowers. So beautiful to see those specks of sunshine in amongst the swaying greenery.

South Wales Atlantic Coast

I took this at the weekend while spending some time on the Atlantic Coast of South Wales. As this is the ocean that separates me from my friend Jen, I wanted to post this for her and hope one day to be able to walk along these clifftops with her.

Self-portrait

They say eyes are the window to the soul. Look inside. What do you see?

Bright amid the grey

Sometimes when the skies seem dark and everything around you seems grey and bleak, there is something simple and beautiful right in front of your face.

Cirrocumulus obscures the sun

There are days when I just want to fall into the sky. Today was one of those days.

This pic was taken in daytime, not at night as it might seem. That's the sun you see, not the moon. I wanted so very much to dive into those clouds and sink beneath the surface.

The sights of Cardiff

There are certain things that I see around Cardiff every time I go there. Sometimes it takes having a little time and looking a little differently to see the stuff that has been there all along.

Dilapidated villa

These villas were once home to 20 or so people each. People with learning disabilities and mental health problems. Women who got pregnant out of wedlock. People from troubled backgrounds.

A lot of the people who would have been admitted here are now cared for at home. Those who need to be in a hospital have personal space instead of sharing a dormitory with 19 other people.

I still feel a bit sad for the building, abandoned and falling into disrepair. Neglected and unwanted. Something about a dilapidated building always tugs at my heart a little.

Billboard beauty

For me, the manufactured aesthetic of a billboard or pin-up is the least likely thing to be beautiful. For me, real beauty is in the acceptance of imperfection; the embracing of difference.

What does beauty mean to you?

Are you lonely?

It's not just living alone that can make one lonely. It makes me smile that underneath that legend stenciled high on the wall is a line of posters advertising club nights and bars, as if to say "Here, you don't have to be alone any more". But being lonely is about more than being alone. I am most lonely in crowds. That's where I feel most out of place. A misfit. I am more likely to feel the bitter pang of isolation surrounded by a mass of people than I would sitting at home on my own.

Loneliness can be a beautiful thing. As Henry Rollins once said, "loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better". Sometimes you need to feel the pain to appreciate the pleasure.

You know what fascinates me?

Doors half-way up the wall with no way to get to them. It's part of a disintegrating urban landscape that somehow fires my imagination

The perfect strawberry

A perfect red heart that appeared in my punnet at lunchtime. It's gone forever now, only to remain as a memory in my camera roll.

Big skies and clouds

Remember how I said I like sky? Well I do. A lot. I was going to stay up last night and try to catch some Perseids, but tiredness got the better of me. Instead I'll take some consolation from some beautiful clouds in a summer sky, infra-red to pick out the lightness in the cumulus. 

Infants

Sometimes I'd like to go through the Infants door. Being a grown-up is tiring.

Down the hatch!

I don't normally do pictures of people. As you can probably tell if you've been following me, most of my pictures are of things and places. But I really like this one.

The subject of the picture is Geraint - founder of ArcEnd Clothing, member of the band We Know Mason and general all round good-egg. We were in Amsterdam when this pic was taken. I was inside the riverbarge where we were staying - he had already climbed out through the escape hatch.

Good times.

Do I have what it takes?

Today I signed up for NaNoWriMo. Who upped the wordcount to 50,000?!

Yes. I know it's not til November, but I am already terrified. And excited. I'm still not convinced I have a novel in me, but I guess there's only one way to find out.

Canopy

Dreamy sky and lush, green new leaves. I love me a tree canopy.

Back to work tomorrow

And this is where I'll be...

Pretty pink flowers at Castle Park

Took this picture today in Cardiff on the way to get back sorted out. Stupid back pain made a little less painful with a spray of bright pink blooms.

Red chard

Red, shiny and beautiful. At Knighton Park, Leicester

Like a kid in a sweet shop

Acid drops or rhubarb & custard?

More of Amsterdam

This was taken from the banks of the River Amstel in Amsterdam three years ago. The sunsets all the time we were there were so beautiful. I could've stood there all day just to watch the rolling clouds change colour as the sun sank behind the buildings.

Velvet red roses, Amsterdam Bloemenmarkt

A storm approaches

I took this at a cove on the Atlantic Coast of South Wales on one of my many visits during three months I took away from work about four years or so ago.


I can’t pinpoint when I developed my fixation with sky. I crave sky like some people crave the ocean. Mottled with clouds; cerulean blue and expansive; or like this - heavy and brooding. Anyone reading through this blog in weeks, months or years to come will probably see sky as a recurrent theme in my photographs.


I think I’d like to visit the desert someday. I hear they have a lot of sky there.

Saunton Beach

This picture was taken on Saunton Beach in North Devon about three years ago. The day was sunny enough to give me partial thickness burns on my chest, even though I was wearing Factor 30 and a cussing cardigan! Stupid, pasty-ass flesh of a redhead is stupid.


There was something about how this came out that makes it look a bit like the foreground of one picture was pasted onto the background of another. I can assure you they were all together in the same place at the same time.

Secret break

Someone on the site where I work had lifted two ancient chairs from the disused hospital wards and taken them into the bikeshed to use it as an impromptu break room. The way the chairs were set out made it look like there had been a real heart-to-heart going on in there. The feeling of confessional still hung in the air like the faint whiff of cigarette smoke around the doorway, so I think it was only very recently used.


If I took breaks at work, I would find myself a hidey-hole like this and go there. I would just like to sit in silence sometimes and feel the time pass me by.

Heebie Jeebies

Taken in Heebie Jeebies, a fantastic club in Liverpool’s Chinatown that played Northen Soul and served Jaegermeister for £1.50 a shot.