PEOPLE 388 – GOING TO WORK 100: SOME PICTURES FROM EARLIER POSTS

 

 

1: the morning bus.

Well, Going to Work – images from Bristol’s morning rush hour – has reached 100 posts, and I’m both pleased and surprised.  As is usual with my photo series, I haven’t the faintest idea of how – or indeed, if – it will progress but, that’s me!  I started the series back in July 2016, and have more and more been drawn towards photographing in the dark, cold, early mornings of winter, but so far this winter I have only managed one such sortie.  Increasing years perhaps, or changing photographic attitudes / preferences / energies?  Early morning buses down to the city centre are still readily available, but these days the vast majority of my early morning forays are local and on foot – and are recorded in this blog’s Outer Suburbs series, which includes the Early Morning series, and which is steadily moving towards 200 posts.

So, anyway, Going to Work at 100, what are my thoughts? Well, on the technical side, I’m grateful for having cameras and image processing software that enable me to photograph in such challenging, early morning conditions.  And then, second – and especially since retirement has given me the space to look at and think about the world around me more – I continue to think about the dehumanisation that modern workstyles can bring – of which work-related stress (which I fell prone to, twice) is a sure pointer.  And especially with regard to working in cities and other large conurbations, with commuting long distances to work, with feeling the need to look at work emails and mobile texts outside of working hours >>> and to balancing all in the “busy modern lifestyle”.

So here are images illustrating just one of these phenomena: the morning rush hour, the morning rush to work, which most people engage in five days out of every seven. Links to the whole series, should you wish to look through them, are given below.  I hope you will like these pictures – clicking onto them once or twice will enlarge them in separate windows.

.
2: the first post, 23 July 2016; the birth of an idea.

.
3: the morning bus, overcrowded, overheated, steamy.

.

Recent Going to Work posts are here: 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 .  Each will open in a separate window.

GOING TO WORK: THE EARLIER POSTS: 1-92.

You can see a summary of the Going to Work series here .

Earlier images from this series can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28,  29, 30,  31,  32, 33  34  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 .  Each will open in a separate window.

.

4: that expression; we’ve all been there.

.
5: hurrying to work, hurrying through the cold, hurrying towards the unreachable light.

.

6: a rather scary part of walking and photographing the morning rush hour is the frenetic and often careless driving of those apparently thinking of little else besides getting to work on time.  When I compiled this post, a week or so back, I wrote “I’ve seen numerous near misses, i.e. near collisions, between vehicles …”.  Well that has changed now: around dawn on Wednesday, on a well lit main road, a car pulled out into the traffic and their came the dull thud and flying debris of an impact; fortunately both drivers were only shaken up.

And I’ve avoided being hit more times than I like to think about >>> and this includes numerous occasions when people reversing out of their driveways fail to ensure that no one is behind them on the pavement!  I particularly remember a woman rushing out of her front door, slamming it, jumping into her big BMW, switching on the ignition, revving up and lurching forward a foot or so before realising that I was a couple of feet from her front bumper: I’ll never forget the totally bewildered and stunned look on her face.  Do I have great admiration for all members the species to which I belong?  Well that’s a very iffy and loaded question, I mean, you’re putting me on the spot here …
.

7: waiting for the morning bus
.
8: lurching forward out of the early morning gloom with a damned big camera, I can have this effect on people.

.

9: going to work from way out in the Outer Suburbs – standing in a bus shelter illuminated by the rising sun and surrounded by fields and trees, but entranced only by mobile phones; a lucky, opportunistic capture with the TG-5.

.

10: I’ve seen this so often – they’re looking down and preoccupied – they’re going to work.

.
11: my overall favourite, I suppose; such an interesting and arresting character >>> I’d love to connect!

.
12: another cold sunrise.

.
13: on her radar.

.
14: another favourite; short of time and the traffic banked up ahead – once again, we’ve all been there; I also like the light on the car’s dirty and “distressed” (but, to me, eminently characterful) bodywork.

.
15: reality; this is how it can be sometimes.

.
16: perhaps dozing, perhaps temporarily somewhere else.

.
17: breakfast, on the go >>> oh, and – of course – role model!!!

.

18: reading the morning paper; the couple behind gazing forwards, as if with foreboding.

.

19: again, that look.

.

20: “Who’s the fat geezer with the camera?”.

.
.
.

PEOPLE 387 – GOING TO WORK 99 (MONO)

 

 

.

Well he’s out of focus and underexposed – and I’m must be losing it but, there again, he’s still him.  And, wearing a work ID tag, he’s labouring gamely to work beneath Christmas decorations and past claustrophobically closely parked cars – cars that appear to have been shoehorned in at the roadside.  Tight parking?  Well this is Park Street … but this is also an effect of using a 300mm telephoto relatively close in to the subject.

Recent Going to Work posts are here: 93 94 95 96 97 98 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Click onto the image twice to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; in-camera production of jpeg from the raw file, using the Graphite profile; further processing in Lightroom; Park Street, central Bristol; 29 Nov 2019.

GOING TO WORK: THE EARLIER POSTS: 1-92.

You can see a summary of the Going to Work series here .

Earlier images from this series can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28,  29, 30,  31,  32, 33  34  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 .  Each will open in a separate window.

.
.
.

SOMERSET LEVELS 441 – CROSS STREET

 

 

.

One of the narrow sidestreets in the older part of Weston’s town centre that I find so attractive.  Streets from my boyhood, I suppose.

Traffic coming up towards the camera is told very firmly by the large white arrow to turn right.  The twin yellow lines down either side of the street ban all parking and, near the camera, are in real need of repainting.  What else?  Well, the bags of refuse on the narrow pavement on the right; two vehicles parked very tightly in on the right further down, and the view right down this narrow street to the parked car at the far end.

Other recent pictures from Weston are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 .

Click onto the image twice to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 24mm; 12,800 ISO; in-camera production of jpeg from the raw file, using the Somber profile; Cross Street, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset; 3 Jan 2020.

.
.
.

SOMERSET LEVELS 439 – WALKING WESTON’S STREETS 6

 

 

Autumn on drain cover

Weston-super-Mare, my home town, on the coast where the Somerset Levels run down into the Bristol Channel – the local, somewhat muddy, version of the sea.  Following a recent reunion with age-old friends there (here), I’ve been visiting Weston again, and walking streets echoing with things remembered – sometimes only half-remembered –  from over half a century ago.

Weston is a seaside town and, like seaside towns the UK over, it is experiencing something of an economic downturn – the era of the family seaside holiday in uncertain British weather is long past, due to cheap holidays in warmer and far more reliable, foreign climes.  So, there is to Weston something of the cheap and cheerful, a – to me, anyway – rather attractive tattiness at the edges, that makes walking here with a camera a pleasure – a definite feeling of not knowing what will appear next.  The Ghost of FATman Past perhaps?  Well, if he gives me half a chance, I’ll photograph him …

And so in Nov 2019 to pictures taken with an open mind – pictures which are, for better or for worse, in the main quite different from the preceding 400+ that I’ve posted of the Somerset Levels.  Some of them may be a little obscure / far out / radical / unexplained /  I don’t know… but I did mention photographing with an open mind, which means looking, on the spur of the moment, at anything and everything …    But, whatever, warts and all, I hope you’ll like (at least some of) these images.  (Click onto them twice to enlarge them)

Earlier posts in this series are here: 1 2 3 4 5 .

A short history of Weston is here.
.

Looking up on the High Street: demise of the seaside holiday, and the economic plight of so many seaside towns

.
 Looking into a trendy bar

.
Rainy morning: umbrella in car

.
.
.

PEOPLE 383 – GOING TO WORK 96 (MONO)

 

 

1

.
The morning rush hour in Bristol city centre.  Grab shots, hastily taken pictures of half-seen human beings, on their way to work.  Faceless, anonymous images that, to me, speak of the often dehumanising influence of work in cities, and of the artificiality of city life generally.

Recent Going to Work posts are here: 93 94 95 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Click onto images 1, 2, 4 and 5 twice to open larger versions in separate windows; image 3 will only respond to a single click.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens; in-camera processing and cropping of raw files, using the Graphite profile; Bristol city centre; 18 Dec 2019.

.

2

.

3

.
4

.

5

.

GOING TO WORK: THE EARLIER POSTS: 1-92.

You can see a summary of the Going to Work series here .

Earlier images from this series can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28,  29, 30,  31,  32, 33  34  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 .  Each will open in a separate window.

.
.
.

ARCHIVE 424 – VEHICLE IN A STORM (TWO ORIENTATIONS)

 

 

.

Vehicle hit by high wind and a cloudburst, on a rooftop car park in south Bristol; 15 Feb 2014.

The view from my car’s window stretched off to the south from where, closing fast, mist and dense gloom were coming at me.  I barely had time to get the G11 from my bag and switch it on before the car shuddered under the impact of the first gusts and the rain’s rattle was all around.

A vehicle, a large black 4×4, was just pulling out, lights on and heading straight into the storm and, as it moved slowly away, I focused on my car’s streaming window and fired.  Long white walls and overhead signs lit up the backdrop, and the tungsten white balance – still set on the camera from a previous photo session – brought a blue cast to the scene.

I’ve modified the image in CEP4, raising contrast and detail, lowering brightness, and counteracting the tungsten’s cold feel with just a little warmth.

After this manipulation, this image no longer faithfully reproduces reality, but it is an impression of things that reminds me of what it was like being there.  And as well as attempting to interpret what this image portrays – which is for many, many of us our initial response to an abstract – I can enjoy this simply as a collection of shapes, textures, colours and tones.  It could also be rotated 90 degrees clockwise, as shown below.

Click onto each image to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: Canon G11 PowerShot at 140mm (35mm equivalent); 400 ISO; tungsten white balance; Color Efex Pro 4.

.

.
.
.

OUTER SUBURBS 166 – COLD MORNING, AFTER RAIN

 

 

.

The sky clears after rain, the first flushes of sunrise do nothing to dispel the penetrating cold, and a street lamp stands – a gaunt sentinel – above The Way Ahead.

And in the distance, the lights of cars, the slow and often halting journey to work in south Bristol.

Click onto the image twice to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

Technique: TG-5 at 30mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 9 Dec 2019.

.
.
.

PEOPLE 381 – GOING TO WORK 94

 

 

.

Morning rush hour, Park Street, in the festive season.  Traffic (including a double-decker bus) inbound to the city centre and beyond from Bristol’s vast northern suburbs.

Recent Going to Work posts are here: 93 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Click onto the image twice to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Sunday profile; Park Street, central Bristol; 29 Nov 2019.

GOING TO WORK: THE EARLIER POSTS: 1-92.

You can see a summary of the Going to Work series here .

Earlier images from this series can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28,  29, 30,  31,  32, 33  34  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 .  Each will open in a separate window.

.
.
.

OUTER SUBURBS 164 – LIFE IN THE MODERN WORLD

 

 

.
Don’t really know what to say here – The Disposable Society? – The End of the Consumer Dream? – Real Life???  >>> but I do remember living in Kenya where, for most of the population, mending things took precedence over disposing of them – and I recall when, soon after returning from Kenya in the early 1990s, eyebrows were raised when I made enquiries about having a flat iron mended, rather than simply throwing it out and buying another one.

Click onto the image twice to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: TG-5 at 30mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 5 Dec 2019.
.
.
.

OUTER SUBURBS 162 – PARKED CAR 9

 

 

.

There are earlier images in this Parked Car series here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Click onto the image twice to open an enlarged version.

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait profile; south Bristol; 19 Nov 2019.
.
.
.