skyline

Salford spectacle

/ mikeosbornphoto / 6 Comments

The time after Christmas and before New Year is a strange void. One of my greatest desires is to escape the house and the excesses of the festive season with a nice brisk walk.

On this particular afternoon I crossed the canal into Salford, Manchester’s twin city. I wanted to visit a hydraulic platform depot, where a whole family of ‘cherrypickers’ sit tall, glancing up at the sky.

And then the sun began its downward journey. Before long, it was filled with a blazing splash of scarlet clouds and gave the machinery a breathtaking backdrop. The nearby Bridgewater Canal became a golden bath.

The sunset on Sunday 29 December was witnessed by many people in Manchester and beyond. It made a simple leg-stretching exercise worthwhile and very memorable indeed.

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Scarred sundown

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Scarred sundown

Scarred sepia sundown

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The first photograph I showed you from our new roof space was an angry, cloud-smudged sky.

There is a shift in mood here, to a calm evening around sunset, the chimney bristling with branches and the proud, upright TV aerial.

What intrigues is the cloud formation, slashing the sky and leaving a blunt but neat wound. It has obvious impact in colour but has strength in the sepia rendition, like a scar from an operation.

I’m beginning to sense that this skyline will often be featured in photographs, catching various seasonal moments…

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Moody rooftops

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Sullen skyline

 These are the first photographs since moving to our new home and bidding farewell to W6.

The move did not take us far, but it’s different. Gone is the conventional ground floor flat – it has been replaced with upper floor living and a space in the rooftops.

Our skies were laced with stormy, rain-bearing clouds which look even more pronounced in monotone. In the scene below, the tower block is part of the old BBC Television Centre where I used to work. The site is now being slowly transformed, which we can see from our new neighbourhood.

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Rooftops of W12

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