The proclamation of King Charles III took place today. Despite my usually staying away from televised royal events for the most part I thought I would take the time to watch this as it was a truly historic occasion. Not only the first time it has taken place in seventy years, but also the first time that certain sections have been broadcast live in this way. It was interesting to see, particularly as the showed the official proclamation of Queen Elizabeth II beforehand and so it was facinating to hear the same words (almost) being read seven decades apart. Elizabeth’s was only broadcast in part however, with the only the proclamation from the balcony of St. James’ Palace being shown. Today we were able to witness the events preceding this, with The King’s first privy council and personal declaration being shown live on television. I expect there were far fewer women present during Elizabeth’s, and certainly not two female Prime Ministers.
It still feels somewhat surreal that the UK now has The King instead of The Queen but I expect that, for most people, it will make little material difference to their lives once the hustle and bustle has diminished.
I don’t have a picture that references a king in my archive (I don’t think Burger King counts…), so instead here’s a random picture of the doorway of a brasserie, which bears no relation to the subject matter above whatsoever.
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Strange times are upon us. Queen Elizabeth II, monarch of the United Kingdom for the last seven decades, passed away yesterday afternoon. It’s a truly historic moment, I think. Not only has she been our longest serving monarch but, because of the length of her reign, she has been a fixture in the lives of so many people for their entire existence, her face on our coins, banknotes, stamps and countless souvenirs and items of popular culture. The Queen’s Speech has been a Christmas Day fixture on the television (and before it, the radio) for what seems forever. Yes, there will be those who remember the years before she became queen, but I expect that for the majority she has always been queen.
I’m not a monarchist particularly, but I’m not a hardcore republican either. I’ve generally avoided any sort of fascination or fixation on the lives of The Queen and other members of the royal family except where it became unavoidable, whether due to scandal, tragedy, royal occasions such as births and weddings, jubilee’s and, of course, deaths. Nontheless, despite my relative uninterest, her death has still left me with a feeling of sadness. I think it’s the way it demonstrates the passing of time, that nothing lasts forever, and – despite the monumentous impact of this occasion – that as the years pass, so even this will become just another section in the history books. It reminds me of my own mortality, the loss of my own loved ones, and the fact that one day I will no longer be here either.
It’s something that happens whenever someone who has had an impact on my life passes away – musicians, authors and actors are probably the obvious examples – a sad knowlege that they are gone and that they won’t be making or doing any of those things you like any more. All you’ll have is what is already there and the memories you made. In those cases though, outside of fan circles, the news tends to die down and – for those who didn’t share a connection – may go unnoticed altogether. There is little chance of escaping the death of The Queen though. All the main TV channels and radio stations are broadcasting almost nothing but the ongoing news of the situation. Radio has become sombre in it’s choice of music. Even the commercial and smaller channels are paying their respects is a variety of ways, with pictures and messages of condolence in abundance. Even outside there are signs and reminders. Electronic billboards – the sort that normally advertise movies, or McDonalds burgers – are now all showing a picture of The Queen. I passed four in close succession today. As each passed, so another would appear in the distance.
And now Queen Elizabeth II is no more, we have a king again in the shape of Charles III. It will be interesting to see how this next era of our history unfolds, although, as before, I will likely view it from a distance and, given current events, it may well be overshadowed by greater concerns. What is certain however, is that he will not reign for anything like as long as his mother did.
I searched through my archive for a relevant picture, but all I could find was the photo below featuring a bobblehead Queen (and Mr Bean).
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Ilford HP5+.
There always seems to be construction taking place in Sheffield, much of it seemingly either extensions to the university, or accommodation for the students. I don’t know what the subject of today’s photograph will be (and it might not be anything to do with the university at all), but it wll change the skyline and feel of the place in some new and previously un-experinced way.
Yesterday, when returning to my car after a rail journey, I looked down one road only to realise that another new building had now changed the look of the street completely. Where once the road curved away with low-rise buildings and a view of the sky, now these low-rises have a much larger and taller building rearing up behind them. I think it will make for an interesting picture, especially in its current partially-constructed state, so I will try and get down there with my camera soon,
This same feeling of change, where much travelled routes now feel strangely unfamilliar, is becoming much more commonplace. I wonder if this is just because of the pace of change, or perhaps the fact thatt I’m getting older and the new is becoming overlaid upon my memories of the old?
Whatever the case, this sunny day picture shot on Portra 800 (over-exposed a stop to 400asa) looks rather nice. The bright sunny conditions could have something (probably a lot) to do with this, but I much prefer how the film looks in these conditions than how it performed shot at box speed on an overcast day.
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
A couple of pictures of boats in Staithes harbour today. They were probably taken about thirty minutes apart and the tide has risen by a small, but noticeable amount in the interim.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
On the third day of our trip to the Yorkshire coast we visited Staithes, a picturesque and quaint fishing village up the coast from Whitby. While there are more modern areas of housing in the village, these sit at the top of the area. The older buildings down by the harbour are reached via steep roads on either side of Staithes Beck. Coming down the hill isn’t too much of a difficulty. Getting back up requires some air in your lungs!
This wasn’t the route we took, but it gives an indication of the gradient required to descend / ascend to and from the harbour area.
As with much of this trip, the weather was mostly overcast (in fact it rained heavily when we first arrived). The tide was also out at the time of our visit, leaving many of the small boats in the harbour beached. I’ll have more pictures from Staithes to post here in the coming days.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
A while back I posted about how I was going to begin uploading images to Flickr at a lower size than I have previously done. This process has been working fine – the JPEG images I upload are still plenty big enough, and I’ve kept the full-resolution original scans on my computer.
However, I’ve noticed today that the majority of my WordPress posts which feature images where I’ve replaced the original files on Flickr are now showing the photo description, rather than the embedded image. The links work fine, taking you to the Flickr version, and if I edit the posts, I can see the images displayed onscreen. But otherwise they are missing as in-line images from the posts, e.g. this post.
At first I wondered if it was a browser caching problem, but the same lack of pictures can be seen in multiple browsers on different devices. I also wondered if the URLs to the Flickr versions might have changes when I replaced the images on there, but they are identical. I’ve even edited the problem posts to remove the original links and replace them, but the same thing still occurs. Oddly, not all posts featuring images that I’ve replaced are affected, so the whole Flickr thing might be a big red herring!
I really dislike issues like this. They happen out of nowhere with no obvious cause and can take lots of meesing around to try to resolve them and I’m not in the mood to do so today. So, if you come across one of my posts that has a link rather than and in-line image, please accept my apologies. All new posts will hopefully be unaflicted, and I hope to fix the others when I get the time to figure out what exactly is going wrong.
Anyway… Here’s a picture of a nice thatched cottage at Sandsend (assuming it embeds into the post!)
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I was going to post a photograph I took of the Sandsend lifeguard station when it struck me that these structures are something I often tend to photograph when I come across them. So, today, here are a bunch of the pictures I’ve made. Some of these might have been published on the blog previously.
During our recent trip to the Yorkshire coast we decided to walk into Sandsend one evening. Sandsend is a small settlement just to the north of Whitby – If you look closely at the picture below, you can see Whitby harbour wall, some residential buildings, and the ruined abbey maybe a mile to the east.
After some rather dull weather for most of the day, the evening was lovely and we found a nice restaurant called the Fish Cottage where we shared a very tasty seafood pizza topped with smoked salmon, tiger prawns and mussels.
A couple were walking on the beach below the road as we walked past and I thought it made for a nice picture.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I posted a very similar photograph to this one last week – the previous shot on Portra 800, this one on Superia 400. Both were shot on the same day and at practically the same location, but the weather had changed from dull and overcast, to sunny blue skies by the time I made this second picture. I much prefer this one.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Steel City Snapper photography 