Posts Tagged ‘Liverpool’

Since its the time of year when people post lists here are the top 11 most visited of my blog posts for the year.

1. The Expendables

2. Yes, Prime Minister

3. Stephen Fry at the Royal Albert Hall Review

4. RED – Retired Extremely Dangerous – Review

5. Chavasse Park Ride

5. Lime Street Station Uncovered

7. Liverpool’s Pyramid – William Mackenzie Tomb

8. Doctor Who: The Big Bang

9. A Town Called Eureka – Season 2

10. Rotating Yates’s Wine Lodge Building

11. Pancetta, Chorizo and Broad Bean Risotto

Reviews have done well and some of the pictures I’ve been posting have picked up a healthy number of eyeballs too

Tree in Sefton Park, Liverpool

With sub-zero temperatures all week I’ve not taken my camera out.  So here’s one I made (months) earlier: a simple photograph of a tree in Sefton Park Liverpool.

It’s bitingly cold again today so I decided to post another picture I took last week when Liverpool was foggy and covered in frost. This one is of the thick frost on a section of the chain fences at the Albert Dock.

Sunday night a thick fog descended on Liverpool. By Monday lunchtime it had lifted but I was still able to get some interesting photographs down on the waterfront at Lunchtime. I was surprised how many people were out with their cameras. Normally if I wander down there at lunch time there will be tourists about. There were a few Japanese tourists and a couple of school parties braving the December cold. There must have been a dozen or more locals out looking to get an iconic shot of the foggy waterfront. Here’s a wide angle shot of the Albert Dock from Strand Street. I’m hoping for a chance to get some shots in heavier fog sometime.

Just got back from Dragonmeet in London.  No snow here in Liverpool although saw a dusting on the fields on the way back.  I did find these icicles had formed on the back of one of my wheelie bins.  The longest one is almost a foot long!

How’s the weather where you are?

I’d gone down to the waterfront to take some photograph today and discovered the MPI Resolution was docked on the Mersey at the cruise liner terminal.  If a ship could ever be described as an impressive piece of kit this one has to be in the running to get that description.  The six towers are six jacking legs that allow it to raise the whole hull of the ship out of the water!  The large crane in the middle of the picture isn’t on the waterfront but also on the ship.  There is plenty of juicy technical information in the brochure on the owner’s website.  The MPI Resolution is currently operating out of Liverpool refitting turbines at Burbo Bank offshore wind farm, at the entrance to the River Mersey.

Over the last few days a giant column has risen from Chavasse Park in Liverpool One. Tonight the ride that goes up it swung into action for the first time. We can just hear the screams from our office. It seemed like a good subject for having a go at some night photography. This is probably not the best of the shots I took as the exposures a bit long but it had more of a sense of movement than the ones with less exposure.

Duke Street Derelict Building

This Wordless Wednesday’s a day late because of the Burke and Hare post.

Most of the pictures I post on my blog of Liverpool are of interesting buildings that are reasonably well looked after.  Having lived here for nearly twenty years I’ve seen a lot of miss-representation of the city in the national media.  I’ve heard comedians tell jokes this year that were about Liverpool before I arrived.    Its like a film crew that came to Liverpool and hunted down a street that’s about to be demolished or  the one who filmed the streets on bin day in one of the few streets that doesn’t have wheelie bins so they could shoot all the bin bags on the street.

I’ve watched Liverpool rebuild itself and restore its architectural heritage.  I don’t want to focus on the derelict and run down buildings any city has.  However some broken down buildings are interesting (and not just the Rotating Yates’s Wine Lodge).

They can have texture and character that other buildings have yet to gain. Water running off architectural details can create interesting patterns. Materials can age in intriguing ways.  Along with the photos I usually post I often snap side streets, alleys, buildings under construction, boarded up buildings and derelict shells.  I’ll live with the funny looks and one time someone complaining about “damn tourists”.

This building on Duke Street shows several layers of its construction, like an actor removing his face paint.

I walked from work to Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral to see Laura Belém’s Temple of a Thousand Bells which is in the Oratory in St James’ Cemetary as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2010. The work consists of a thousand hand-blown glass bells suspended on nylon string through a gently glowing ceiling. An 8 minute polyphonic piece of music by Fernando Rocha including many different bell sounds fills the room. Really beautiful work. I just wish I’d had more than fifteen minutes to experience it.

Renshaw Street in Liverpool has been the home of Rapid Hardware all the time I’ve lived here. It took up so many of the shops along one side of the street that it was commonly known as Rapid Hardware Street. When they moved into the old George Henry Lee’s / John Lewis building it left the street looking very bare. Now for the Liverpool Biennial 2010 large sections of the old shops have been turned into temporary galleries and a Visitor Centre. Six of the shop windows are filled with the billboard-sized photographic works by Freee Every Shop Window is a Soap Box.