commafruit.co.uk. welcome.

I attended a protest march in London yesterday in opposition to the wars currently being engaged by the UK. These photos are available in a Flickr set.

Crowds at Trafalgar Square

Manchester University Student Union sent two coach-loads of people.

A temporary stage was set up.

Emotive slogans.

Tens of thousands of people flooded Trafalgar Square and the surrounding area, but what little media coverage there was of this played the numbers down.

The fact that McDonalds just carried on regardless was fairly amusing.

Damn straight.

The majority of placards at the protest were produced in the thousands by organisations (I carried one from the CND), so more sincere, hand-made versions stood out well.

Final phase of the rally at Westminster.

CPGBs started chanting about revolution. Great to see people enthused, but that wasn’t really the topic of the day chaps.

I noticed these placards lying around at the very end, seemed to sum up the feeling of the day.

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Schmap^w have seen fit to include a photo I took in the summer of St. Charles station in their latest online travel guide. Neat! No compensation, but credit is given, and a link back to the original on Flickr. Check out the guide, or see the original.

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Now that there is finally some content up there, it seems like a good time to introduce my most recent photo project, A Picture of Manchester. This is intended to be extremely light-weight, that is, I’m not desperately worried about the technical merit, more the content and feeling a shot provides. I’m not going so far as to call it gonzo, but that style is definitely part of the inspiration behind the project.

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Just back from two and a half weeks touring Europe by train, I’ll put up some notes soon, but for now, try this flickr photo set.

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Recently I unveiled a new website: Just Barely There. This is a blog consisting of free (libre), Creative-Commons-licensed stock abstract images. The plan is to release them at the rate of two per week. Please check it out!

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There’s lately been a gamut of stop-frame videos of people who’ve taken photos of themselves every day for years. It’s an intriguing idea for a project, but I’m not sure I could force myself to do it for a long enough time period.

• madandcrazychild’s effort is short, but she’s nice to look at so that’s ok
• Sven and Tobias‘ efforts are impressive for what they are (taking a photo every day for 3 years), but ultimately they’re boring compared to others
• Phil is much more interesting, with beard and hair changing gradually, and then getting a bit more creative toward the end
• Like Tobias and Sven, Marqs video is a great achievement, but very repetitive. Also a bit lo-fi
• Lee has a different take, not only in that he doesn’t attempt to be in the same position with the same expression every frame. There is some debate about the authenticity of this
• Ben, staged but humourous. Apparently this was used as a Mountain Dew ad in the US
• ahreelee’s take is haunting, because she doesn’t change much over the course of three years, and even though she tries not to, just occasionally you get a glipse of a smile
• elko9, only 269 images, but more interesting as she makes a real effort to make each frame unique - there is no sense of continuity
• Orange is a piss take, filed under Comedy, but not actually that funny

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I’ve just finished setting up Peterborough in Winter, a new photoblog, check it out now…

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I submitted a new piece to DeviantArt yesterday - haven’t done that in ages. It used to be that I would submit all manner of stuff (especially to my old account), but I think now I’ll just use it for more “arty” type things.

New “Peterborough” page coming soon for more traditional photography. This is partly an extension of the plans I had for Manchester (now somewhat defunct - at least until September 2007), but also inspired by a project by Kathleen Connally.

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Went to Bordeaux with my parents and sister last week. It’s such a nice city, made me wish I’d made more effort to learn French at school when I had the chance. I did try to learn by myself (partly using the excellent BBC Learning site), but it’s hard to maintain interest with other things going on and no real incentive.
Anyway, Bordeaux is a beautiful place, and unexplainably French; it made me realise that in the past I’d been to Paris, and had been willing to think that this meant I’d been to France.

A lot of the landmarks are currently surrounded in fencing, presumably because they’re currently being cleaned, which makes me suspect that the city is preparing itself for an increase of tourism this summer. I hope this does not detract from the atmosphere of the place, I think it would be easy to damage the (apparently) slow pace of life, or the distinctly French nature. Maybe in a few years (when I can afford it, and, maybe, can speak some more of the language) I’ll go back and find out.
Took some photos, not great given how pretty the scenery was, but then the weather wasn’t that great…

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Last week I went with a few friends to stay in Powys, Wales in a friends grandparents cottage (free of charge!), then climbed Cader Idris, second highest mountain in Wales. In many ways, the driving was one of the most exciting parts of the trip (some of these Welsh roads are amazing, just not the most safe ever…) Took a few photos on the way around though, see below.

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