Thoughts On Redbubble?

My photograph today is by a guest photographer, my good friend Lorne Campbell. This photograph shows an artistic view of an old 2CV Citroen car pictured in the historic Victorian village of Saltaire here in Yorkshire.

This old 2CV is driven most days by its owner my friend Chris and yesterday he took me in this car up into the Yorkshire Dales to Grassington and back. I have not travelled in a 2CV since I was a student and was at first a little unsure, did the brakes work?, would a wheel fall off? I need not have worried the little car was fine, if perhaps a little noisy.

Lorne Campbell photographer has some of his work available, as prints on Redbubble, so far they are all views in and around the village of Saltaire, Yorkshire. Buy prints of Saltaire, Yorkshire.

Anyone use Redbubble to display and sell their work and what do you think of Redbubble. Perhaps you use an alternative company, again your thoughts would be most welcome.

Dark Arches - Light and Sound Installation

This picture shows a view of the dark arches underneath the railway station, Leeds. Anyone who has walked along the road towards Granary Wharf or perhaps Bridgewater Place over the last few months will have noticed the odd noises and lighting.

I have just looked through some photographs I took a few weeks back and given this one some thought and looked around the web for some info. Turns out that this is a sound and light installation by Hans Peter Kuhn. There are directional speakers built behind the new aluminium panels along the wall and lights too. I watched the beginnings of the installation of these and it never occured to me that it might be public art. Then when it was nearly finished I realised what it was.

So if you should travel along Neville Street and through the tunnel you will notice this light and sound installation and see it for what it is.

I Want One

This photo shows a chair that is in the lounge of a friends house, I was there recently and took this photograph to remind me that... I want one of these, I tried it out and it is quite comfy.

I doubt my friend noticed me take this photo and knowing that he does look at this blog he may well think that looks like my chair. Well yes it is, but perhaps before you read this I may well have got my own chair.

St Oswalds Church Yorkshire Redux

This is a view through the gate to the parish church of St Oswalds in Collingham, Yorkshire.

There is another view of this fine old church here.

St Oswalds Church Collingham in Snow

Snow has returned to Yorkshire the last couple of days and this photo shows St Oswalds Church in Collingham. The parish church of St Oswalds is the parish church of Collingham with Harewood.

Much altered by the Victorians (like so many parish churches) 1840-41 St Oswalds church thought to pre date the arrival of the Normans in 1066. St Oswald is an Anglo-Saxon saint and much of the stonework of the knave and chancel is Saxon. The clock on the church tower was installed in 1891, the tower dating from the 16th Century.

1704 Nunlow Steam Loco at KWVR

This image shows the 1704 Nunlow Steam Locomotive on the The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway 'The Railway Children' line near Oakworth Station.

Nunlow was built by Hudswell, Clarke and Company Limited an engineering and locomotive building company in Hunslet, Leeds in 1938. Hunslet, Leeds was a centre for engineering and locomotive construction from the time industrial revolution.

This steam train photograph is another taken by me at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway steam gala last week.

Geese at Temple Newsam

This picture shows a small gaggle of geese at Home Farm on the Temple Newsam estate.

Anyone who has ever been chased by even a small number of geese will know why the Romans kept them as guard dogs, they are very effective. To be fair they only have a small number of geese at Temple Newsam and they are no way as aggresive as the Canada geese living in and around many public lakes and canals.

These geese are I discovered Chinese geese and like all geese if you get too close they hiss!!

Warm Fire at Oakworth Station

This photo shows the nice coal fire keeping the ladies waiting room at Oakworth Station warm.

It is still quite cold here in Yorkshire and as I write this my fingers are cold and I really would like this fire in my flat.

As I wrote yesterday Oakworth Station here in Yorkshire was used in the making of the film The Railway Children and this year is its 40th anniversary. Today I learnt of the death yesterday of actor-director Lionel Jeffries who was 83. Lionel Jeffries directorial debut was his 1970 adaptation of E. Nesbitt’s classic The Railway Children, which starred Bernard Cribbins and launched the career of Jenny Agutter. Jenny Agutter was 17 when the film was made and her role of Roberta (Bobby) made her famous. The Railway Children was seen my countless families and made an impact on many people. This afternoon I spoke with a young woman (Roberta) here in Yorkshire, she was quite striking and I thought perhaps my photographer friend Lorne might be able to use her in a photo project he and I were discussing recently. Turns out Roberta was named by her mother after the Jenny Agutter role in the film.

In The Railway Children, Lionel Jeffries has left us with a marvelous monument to his life and work.

I had visited Oakworth on the keighley and Worth Valley railway to photograph some of the steam trains that are used on this volunteer run railway.

Ladies Waiting Room - Oakworth

This photo shows the ladies waiting room at Oakworth station on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. The KWVR is today run by volunteers and is a marvel whereby the public can travel back in time on a railway with steam engines and lots of informative railway staff.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the cinema film The Railway Children and Oakworth station and indeed the whole KWVR feature in the film. I can still recall Perks shouting "Oakworth, Oakwoorrtthh" when a train pulled into the station. The actor Bernard Cribbens will always to me be Mr Perks the station porter in this marvelous film.

One of the things I like about my Leeds daily photo blog is that I can explore places that normally without my trusty Canon would be off limits. Todays post is one such place the ladies waiting room at Oakworth. It still has gas lighting and a working coal fire. When I entered there was a lady walker warming herself at the fireplace and I asked if she minded my intrusion and as you can see from the picture there was no problem.

As someone who travels on the modern railway often, I would really appreciate the old fashioned charm of this station rather than the cold charmless rooms available today.

Princes Exchange From The Waterfront

Picture of Princes Exchange Leeds Rear

This photograph is the award winning Princes Exchange building viewed from the Leeds waterfront.

I pass by this building often and until the day I took this photo I had not been around to the rear of the building and did not realise how close the the Leeds waterfront it is.

Princes Exchange Building

This is a view of the Princes Exchange office building on Whitehall Road adjacent to the railway station.

If I remember correctly the Tv show set here in Leeds called North Square the opening credits showed a view of this building. I thought the TV series about barristers at work and play was very pithy and had a great cast including Kevin McKidd (Rome), Rupert Penry-Jones (Spooks) and the in this series fabulously poisonous Philip Davis. But Channel 4 canned the show after the first series and it has all but disappeared, not even available on DVD.

Not Quite Butterflies

This photograph shows some of the many chrysalis or pupa stage of the life cycle of the butterfly at Tropical World in Roundhay Park. These chrysalis are hanging in a case and will eventually transform into beautiful butterflies that can be seen flying freely around the butterfly house.

I had problems taking photos inside the warm greenhouses that house tropical world, outside it was very cold and inside it was damp and warm. My lens was steamed up the whole time.

Tropical World, Leeds is perhaps best known for its small gang of meerkats that can be seen there, but I do like to see the many butterflies.

Old 80002 BR Loco at Oakworth

This black and white photograph shows old BR loco 80002 with steam up on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

I featured BR Standard 4 No 80002 in another photograph on the Leeds daily photo yesterday.

Keighley & Worth Valley Railway - Steam Train

This photograph shows BR standard engine No 80002 on the KVWR track at Oakworth station seen during the Winter Steam Gala this weekend.

Whilst I am not a train spotter I can understand the romance of the era of the steam train and as a movie buff one of my favourite films is The Railway Children of 1970. This film is based on the book by E Nesbit from 1905.

I saw a screening of The Railway Children when Jenny Agutter came to the NMPFT (now National Media Museum) and talked about her film career, having been Roberta in the film.

Nearly Lambing Time in Yorkshire

I could not resist this photo, when I saw the notice and the sheep looking out at me at Home Farm on the Temple Newsam estate near Leeds.

This black faced ewe and the other sheep in the photo are waiting and have around a week before the first lambs of this year appear. As this sign says:
This year at home farm lambing will start from february 21st and will continue until the end of may.

I always love to see the first lambs each year, because it is a sign of renewal and that spring is nearly here. It is cold here and we recently had snow so these lambs will be sheltered from the weather for a while.

Australian Duck On Leeds - Liverpool Canal

Near where I live in the village of Saltaire, lies the Leeds - Liverpool canal and if I have some spare bread I will walk down and feed the ducks that live there.

The last few months I have seen a strange (to me at least) duck, I am not a bird photographer but I have a good idea of the birds that reside here in the UK. I photographed the duck and using the net asked what it was. I was surprised that the bird is an Australian Wood Duck this species is also known as the Maned Duck or the Maned Goose.

This duck is I think a male and seems quite happy mooching about the canal alongside the many mallards that live there. This is the second unusual duck to live here, we also have a very colourful Mandarin duck.

Secret Leeds - Competition Coming Up

This photo shows a view of one of the pair of clocks that hang outside the Leeds Civic Hall.

When I cropped this image I noticed for the first time the four tortoises surrounding the clock face. Something about Leeds that I never knew and indeed still have no idea why they are there.

Which brings me onto something similar, a company has asked if the Leeds Daily Photo would host a small competition and they would provide a prize for the winner. The theme will be secret Leeds, I have not quite finalised the details of the competition but it will be simple and there is a prize that I would be pleased to win. Although I guess as my decision will be final, as editor it would not be fair of me to enter.

The competition will be hosted here on the Leeds DP in the next few days, I will try and get it up and online ASAP. The prize will be one Annual Membership to the National Media Museum in Bradford (you get to see 6 films free, get invited to member only events and the like).

YB - Sign From Another Age

This photo shows a small section of Victorian cast iron railings at the side of a former bank on City Square, Leeds.

I walk around this area quite a bit and had not noticed this small piece of metalwork. When the Victorians built something they often wanted something that made a statement, sometimes even when that was perhaps rarely seen. Here in the UK our villages, towns and city's have many monuments built by people who cared and thought about not just today but tomorrow and the day after.

This former bank of the Yorkshire Banking Company is now a nightclub, but for a long time after it was built being a banker meant that you looked after peoples money, investments and interests... Banks were organisations that people trusted, respected and were perceived to have their customers interests at heart.

I well recall going into a branch of William and Glyn's bank in Surrey and asking to open and account finding myself offered tea and biscuits with the manager. They wanted to know about their customers and knew them quite well.

All this has changed, today if you go into a bank here in England they will most likely want to sell you car, house, pet or indeed any kind of insurance. They do not care if you need the insurance.

Some people here were surprised when Santander the Spanish bank started taking over some well known UK banks, Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley. I guess that the recent advert for Santander says it all... "A prudent approach to banking" Whoa, they have re-invented the wheel!! I remember thinking at the time I first saw the Scalextric Santander advert, thats a new approach, being prudent with OUR money.

You can see the Scalextric Santander advert here, if you like motor racing, clever adverts and how they do them I really do recommend seeing both the advert and how they did it.

My uncle built a large scalextric track in his house and my cousins and I would spend hours racing the cars.

Space, The Final Frontier

Photo courtesy of NASA

This photo shows Nicholas Patrick Ph.D. who is a British-born engineer and a NASA astronaut and a member of the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour mission STS-130 currently in space on route to the International Space Station.

Patrick was born in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire, England in 1964 but became a United States citizen in 1994. This is his second flight as a mission specialist on the shuttle, his first was STS-116 in December 2006 this making him the second Yorkshire born astronaut.

Helen Sharman born in Sheffield, Yorkshire was the first British astronaut on board Soyuz TM-12 mission to the Mir Space Station in 1991 and at 27 years 11 months Helen remains one of the youngest ever in space.

Patrick attended Trintity College, Cambridge then MIT where he took his masters and then did a Ph.d in mechanical engineering before joining Boeing in Seattle. Patrick was selected for the astronaut program at NASA June 1998.

The crew of Endeavour for this mission is:

Commander George Zamka, Terry Virts pilot. Mission Specialists are Nicholas Patrick, Robert Behnken, Stephen Robinson and Kathryn Hire.

I wish them a succesful mission and also live long and prosper.

Pedestrian Bridge Whitehall to Holbeck

I like this recent bridge for pedesrians spanning the river Aire between the Whitehall ofice develpment and Holbeck.

This view across the bridge looks towards the proposed Wellington Place development between Whitehall Road and Wellington Street.

You can see on the right the large Victorian stone building, part of a former earlier railway complex that I featured yesterday.

Mystery Building

My photo today is called mystery building for good reason, it is to me a mystery and I have no idea who built it or why.

This building lies around midway between Wellington Street and Whitehall Road not far from the Latitude office development. The building can be seen from a train on the nearby railyway tracks and also the canal bank.

I have seen this building so often over the years but the day I took this photo was the first time I had been close to it. The slightly odd angle of the photo was due to me not wanting modern lamp posts in the picture or the nearby parked cars.

From the size of some of the stone blocks used in its construction I would hazard a guess of being built around 1840. This date was a time of expansion and growth in this part of Leeds with lots of engineering works and railway contruction.

If anyone in Leeds knows what this building was I would be pleased to know.

Powerbocking Outside City Art Gallery

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This photo shows Peter powerbocking above the pavement outside Leeds city art gallery.

It was a cold and cloudy day here in Leeds and I was headed to the Art Gallery to spend some time warming up and seeing any new exhibition that might be on when I saw some young men powerbocking outside. I only knew what powerbocking was because I had met three of these bockers before. Peter and Simeon I had met at the Saltaire festival last summer where they and a small group of friends where doing a display in the road outside the Victoria hall.

Peter seen in this photo is very good and can easily do somersaults whilst wearing his springs. In the background of the photo is the Leeds city art gallery and outside is a Henry Moore statue of reclining woman.

British Waterways

This photo shows the British Waterways logo from the side of a van that I saw at Granary Wharf on the Leeds waterfront a few days back.

I like many others here in the UK walk along a canal towpath quite often for recreation. British Waterways is responsible for the upkeep of 2,200 miles (3,220) of canals and rivers. As someone who really appreciates the Leeds - Liverpool canal, at least the bit hereabouts I often notice the various workers from British Waterways about their daily work. They are always friendly and helpful and I think proud of the legacy that is the canal network here in the UK.

I like this logo a lot, it is simple to understand and very recognisable. The slight reflection on the right in the photo is the canal building adjacent to the bridge at Granary Wharf both built by the canal company in 1841. I will post a little about these in a while.

Industrial Art at Latitude Development

I saw this piece of what I think is industrial art adjacent to the Latitude office development on Whitehall road, Leeds.

I may be wrong but I do think it was placed there as public art on the Leeds - Liverpool canal side of the development. It is quite tall and looks to be made of iron, not really sure what it was used for in its previous industrial life.

I had been waiting for a nice bright day to get some architectural photographs of the buildings along this piece of the canal. Having now taken photos of many of these buildings I shall post them over the next few days.

Latitude Office Development

This photo shows a view of the Latitude office development phase one on Whitehall Road not far from the city centre of Leeds.

You can see the Victorian railway arches in the background, this being not far from Leeds rail station.

I used to walk past this development daily and watched this building rise from a hole in the ground and now it is completed, this is the first phase called Red, of the Latitude Development.

Road Works - Too Many Signs?

I was walking around Shipley, Yorkshire not far from my home when I saw the road work signs in this photo.

Sometimes when looking for a subject for both my camera and the Leeds Daily Photo I struggle to find something. I knew as soon as I saw these signs that here was a story and I think also a decent picture too.

OK I will grant that they were working on the road (Not at this time though it being Sunday pm) but there are 8 signs in around 50 yards of pavement as can be seen in the photograph each of them with a different message.

Funny, I normally struggle to photograph around street signage, not with this picture though! Whilst I was taking this photo, kneeling in the roadway a nearby PCSO saw me and came over to see that I was OK. I assured her that I was fine just getting down to get the photo.

Big Cat - City Museum

This photo shows the Leeds tiger, viewed at the city museum by generations of families, it is a very popular exhibit.

This Bengal tiger when given to the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society in the 19th century was a tigerskin rug which was then stuffed with straw before being exhibited.

The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society founded in 1819, had its own building in Park Row, Leeds where it housed a museum collection. In 1921 the museum collection became the foundation of the Leeds city museum when it was given to Corporation of Leeds which later became Leeds City Council.

There was a campaign to save the tiger, which at one time was in real danger of being thrown out. Having suffered the indignity of being a floor rug and being later badly stuffed, this magnificent beast is at last I think in a better place.

Today this Bengal tiger has pride of place at the entrance to the natural history gallery in the Leeds city museum.