Waiting for The Pope

This kid is waiting for a papal blessing in St Peter's Square in Rome. The yellow scarf around his neck denotes the religious group he belongs to. I think he was German, as there were a great deal there. I didn't expect to be moved by the whole papal experience, however being around thousands of people fulfilling their lifelong ambition to receive the blessing was touching. People came from as far away as the Far East and South America, some carrying relics and in very grand processions. Let's face it, at Rome prices most could probably only afford to go once in their life.

M6

The M6. Who loves it? Another attempt at a Todd Hido, and again it won't win any prizes, but I still like it. We drove up to Manchester at the weekend to let off some fireworks. The weather wasn't as bad as it looked here. Whatever the weather, the M6 is never pleasant. Add some trucks and the occasional speeding idiot and it makes it all even worse.

Trees

One of my favourite photographers is a guy called Todd Hido. Todd is based in San Francisco and is a highly accomplished fine art photographer. His pictures sell for $10,000 a pop. He's most famous for his "Homes at Night" series, but has also produced a controversial set of provocative portraits using "real" women. My personal favourite photographs of his belong to his landscape series "Roaming." They are mainly taken in bad or bland weather conditions, and are usually shot through a car window. They are some of the most atmospheric photographs I've ever seen.

I took this picture on Cannock Chase with a nod to Todd. Of course it's a digital image and not a print, and it wouldn't sell for $10, let alone $10,000! His images are deceptively simple, and impossible to recreate with a digital camera. I like this though. It's the first time I've ever produced anything that looks remotely like Todd's work, but it wasn't shot through a car window.

To view Todds work, go to...

www.toddhido.com

Bus

I rarely get the bus. Not that I mind getting the bus, it's just that I don't need to that often. Buses here can be quite intimidating places, particularly on the upstairs deck and if you believe what you read in the Daily Mail. They're usually full of kids with their feet on the seats, playing their tinny Simon Cowell music through mobile phones and sometimes smoking a joint. This one was empty, so I sat on the front seat and tried to get some pictures of the rain and the traffic out of the front window, but then I turned around and saw this picture. I knew it wouldn't be long before someone came upstairs and ruined the shot, so I took it quickly. Needless to say seconds later someone appeared in the stairwell.

Steve Earle

Forget Johnny Cash, Steve Earle's is the most raucous rock'n'roll biography. Alcohol and heroin addiction, seven wives, biker gangs, guns, homelessness, near death experiences, Hepatitis C, imprisonment, snarling country rock anthems, death threats from rabid Neo-Cons and ultimately redemption and a surprise role in a certain top quality late night long running TV show. Steve came to Birmingham Town Hall last night with a couple of guitars, a mandolin and some kind of bouzouki and tore the place up. He played some great Townes Van Zandt songs plus a selection of his own classics. I took this picture from four rows away from the stage.

Autumn

I wanted to post something today that was vaguely autumnal. The leaves have been gorgeous this year (are they like that every year?) and I wanted to get a picture before they all turned to mush. Anyway, today was the first time this year that I've noticed that the nice feeling of autumn has almost given way to the misery of winter.

First Blog

I've been toying with the idea of doing a photoblog from my home city of Birmingham for a while, mainly as an incentive to get out there and take some more pictures, but also as a way to indulge myself and maybe amuse my friends. I didn't have to go too far today. I was going to jump on the train and pop into Brum to get some ideas. I walked out of my front door however and saw the Coke bottle. I walked past it. I then walked 10 yards up the road and saw the drain.... then the yellow no parking lines and.... bingo! On came the lightbulb. Five minutes later I was back at home working out how to format and post my blog. Barring holidays without access to the internet and death I'm hoping to post an image every day, whatever the weather or whether I can be bothered or not. I'll try to make them as current as I can, that is to blog an image I've taken on the day of post. When I really can't do this I may cheat and slip one in from the archives. For those that are interested in this kind of stuff, I'm going to use my new Olympus PEN as much as possible, simply because I can put it into a small bag or even into my pocket. Also it's a lot less obtrusive than my DSLR, and it forces me to just click rather than mess about with stuff that I'm not actually very good at. As I go along and get a bit more comfortable with all this I'll add some links and some other things.

Please bookmark this link and check in when you can... or at least until you get bored.

Lee