Blog
A blog about photography and travel.
Around Manchester
Weekend in Manchester, Blackpool and Sheffield
Towards the end of May I spent a long weekend in Manchester. Booked a hotel downtown and took a couple of train trips to Blackpool and Sheffield.
These three cities may not sound very attractive, and have been going through some hard times over the last decades, but I found then all surprisingly nice really. Manchester is being transformed into a modern metropolis, Blackpool is not the cheap, run-down tourist trap I imagined it to be, and Sheffield is successfully building on its heritage of coal and steel industry to become a hub of technology and learning. What’s the fuss all about?
Easter in London
First trip in over two years that feels like normal
For Easter I visited London, one of my favorite cities, for the first time in almost three years. London is safe, walkable and has great public transport. It’s also dripping with history and sights, and has a relaxed multi-cultural vibe. To get there from Iceland is only a short flight and, although the Icelandic and English cultures are quite different, they are also compatible in the sense that we don’t take ourselves very seriously - which is a happy place to be, in my view.
It was quite a long trip so I was exhausted when I got back. In addition to walking the length and breadth of London, I also visited Southend-On-Sea, Brighton and Southampton. I have a soft spot for Brighton but Southampton I never need to visit again. Southend-On-Sea is only remarkable for it’s 2km long pier, which is actually well worth a visit.
I brought the Fujifilm XE4 along with the XF16-55, XF23f1.4 and XF50-140. Also, I had a brand new iPhone 13 Pro Max which takes decent photos. Nothing like a real camera though. The jpegs are over-sharpened and HDR-d, which I can probably fix but can’t be bothered to.
I wish there was proper support for Galleries in blog posts on this web-site - but there’s not. Image titles are especially bad. So here’s a catalog:
Image 1: Businessman at the Southbank
Image 2: @London Bridge station
Image 3: @River Thames
Images 4-8: Southend-on-Sea
Image 9: Earl’s Court station
Image 10: Seven Dials
Images 11-16: Hyde Park
Images 17-19: Kew Gardens
Image 20: Oxford Street
Image 21: Brighton
Image 22: Near Waterloo station
Images 23-24: Hi-jacking a photoshoot near Westminster
Images 25-26: @Parliament Square
Image 27: Beer-time at Brewdog Tower Hill
Image 28: A green-ish Rolls in front the new American Embassy. Had seen the exact same car at Tower Hill a few days earlier.
