You know how it is with old friends. You spend years in each other’s pockets then you drift apart. You get together less and less often. You end up exchanging festive greetings in December each year. And that’s about it.
You try and guess how they look now with a few decades on them. You try and remember how they looked when you were close. You struggle with this. You recall some details but nowhere near all. There was something about playing Scrabble, and writing on the shopping list they kept on their kitchen wall.
But the detail isn’t there, and there’s even less detail about some of the peripheral things that went on. And time goes on and you still haven’t been to see them.
You get the telescope out to try and see more clearly but it doesn’t help. It’s the wrong way round. And they’re getting further away.
Despite my misgivings about talking too much about camera settings and other configuration matters which aren’t too important, these are the bits of technical information about this picture some folk find useful:
- Camera: Fuji X Pro-2
- Lens: Samyang 12mm f2
- ISO: 200
- Exposure: 1/25 at f8.0 (handheld)
- I use Lightroom and NIK software for sharpening and noise reduction.
Other backstories
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Late bar, Venice, 2008
By daylight the scene is nothing to write home about. But at night, nearly midnight, all those extraneous elements and colours just disappeared, and the atmosphere of the Venetian night took over.
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The Night Express, 2016
It’s as though the bridge is being cast in front of your eyes, a trail of molten gold flowing along the raised track.
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The Farnes, 2019
Going back through my pictures, I’ve been finding it far easier to identify interesting monochrome images to document rather than colour ones. Better? Or just different?
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Piemme, Bologna, 2006
I remember feeling quite overwhelmed by the blue and didn’t really notice anything else for a while. I knew I had to take this photograph.
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The Serpents’ View, 2015
Has something just happened? Or is something about to happen? Or perhaps nothing ever happens up here in the waiting room on the roof of the known world.
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Manchester Art Gallery, 2004
As soon as I saw the negative emerge from the developer I knew I’d got something worthwhile.
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Chad! No! Manchester, 2012
“But it’s just a picture of a wall!” It’s also a picture of ambition moderated by pragmatism, of nostalgia, of seeing how things were, how things are now and how they got there.
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The Fin, 2011
Way back in 2011, I was fascinated by the buildings in Manchester – mainly the Victorian and Edwardian commercial architecture. There was lots to go at, and much that was in an attractive state of dilapidation. But there’s lots of modern buildings too and I regret not photographing more while I was there.
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Bamburgh, 2016
Bamburgh, 2016: bringing myths to life – the story behind the image.
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Distant Horizons, 2019
Sometimes, when you take a photograph, you know immediately what it’s about. Other times, you’re not so sure. This was one of those times.
