Chilly pigeons

The weather has been so relentlessly crap for the past few weeks that I'm beginning to forget what the sun looks like. We've had the wettest November in the history of mankind and December looks like it's going to do its best to get into the record books as well. It's also cold and grey and I have a cold. Meh.

But of course there are always photo opportunities and I spotted this lot perched in a tree above the faux well in St Ann's Well Gardens near where I live, huddled against the cold and looking as miserable as I felt trudging past them.

I suppose there's some comfort in the old maxim about there always being someone worse off than you - and sure enough the thought of not having to sit naked on a spindly branch on a cold December afternoon, feeling the rain seep into every orifice and the wind trying to dislodge me even as it was making the rain feel even colder somehow cheered me up no end.

Ah, the power of positive thinking.

Size four and a half on the Lawns

I saw this discarded shoe (size four and a half) impaled on a post at the western end of The Lawns yesterday and it sparked off a rather brilliant thought process, even if I say so myself. I'm beginning to think there may be some mileage in the idea of tracking down enough discarded women's clothing to make up a whole outfit. I could then open a little boutique called something like Wardrobe Trouvée and sell them on for vast sums of money. If there's a flaw in my plan - and that's a big 'if' there because I think this is a winner - it's the time it might take to find enough stock. It has, after all, been several weeks since I found the other item, this bra. But I might be able to turn this into a selling point. I might be able to convince the sort of vapid halfwit who might shop in such a boutique that their scarcity makes my items that much more valuable. This could be my big moment! Does anyone have Paris Hilton's mobile number?

Fireworks

It's hard to avoid taking your camera along to firework displays - almost as hard as it is coming up with anything remotely original once you get there. I quite like this one because it was 'made' rather than just snapped. It was a conscious effort to capture a distant explosion against a foreground of other, closer explosions and some spectators and buildings for context.

I took about 120 shots that night and ended up with fewer than 20 useable ones thanks to a nearby streetlight that I didn't notice at all when we were there, but which leaked light into most of my shots. Good job it was just a bit of fun and nothing important...

After hours barber

Another blast from the recent past tonight. This one's been growing on me slightly since I took it on my way home from the 65daysofstatic gig where this shot was taken. My ears were ringing and I still wasn't sure if I'd caused them permanent damage - the Digital system is L O U D (thankfully it's also very good, so I escaped without any after effects). But as I strolled home, enjoying the peaceful ringing in my ears, I was looking out for photo opportunities. This was the only one I saw and I wasn't all that impressed at the time. I think I was hoping for something a bit more dramatic and gritty - something that might attract the interest of someone like the incomparable Dr Karanka on Flickr. But there were no dramas, just the quiet streets of Brighton, leading to the even quieter streets of Hove. So I made do with this scene, hoping that the door frame might act as an aesthetically pleasing divider between the east facing red chairs and those facing west. And it does. At least I think so.

Hat-flipping escapologist

I caught about 20 minutes of this guy on The Lawns yesterday. His main act is escapology but the real shtick was his humour, which was irresistible. There must have been 200 or 300 people watching him and I reckon everyone there had a continuous chuckle going on throughout his act. He was effortlessly amusing - appealing to toddlers, drunks, grandparents, families and passing cyclists equally it seemed to me - a genuine entertainer. Not half bad as an escapologist either. The only thing he wasn't so great at was catching a hat flipped from his foot while in chains at the top of a ladder. It took him at least four attempts to catch it.

Snapper's delight

I went to a Brighton Flickr group beach barbecue last night and had a great time. There were many good photographers there, some very interesting cameras, and some very nice actual people too. I didn't take many photos for some reason - not sure why really, perhaps I was intimidated by the sheer weight of photographic experience on that beach. Or perhaps I was just having too good a time. I did get this one though - that sky was a truly amazing colour and the clouds were swirling in the most extraordinary patterns. This doesn't do it any kind of justice but it still looks pretty good. It takes a lot to persuade me to photograph anything sunset related on the seafront these days because it's all been done before so many times, but this one seemed justified. I hope you agree.

Sunset bikes

Back on that shadow theme again. It would have been good to capture the full bike shadow image on the ramp in the foreground and maybe have slightly less clutter in the image as a whole but I do like the setting sunlight on the huts and the graffiti wall below them. I think this one would have been improved if I'd stuck around a little longer too - both to get a richer, redder, sunlight and to catch some gnarlier jumping. But hey ho, I was on my way to a bowl of chilli and a subtitled movie and missions don't get much more serious than that.

I really feel lucky about the number of opportunities there are for photography around my way - you could really go in any direction around dusk at this time of year and find something amazing within a 10-minute cycle.

Odd bubble-blowing gizmo

Day three and I've cheated again! This was taken yesterday but I didn't get round to posting it because we had houseguests and were having far too much fun to do geeky things like feeding a blog. This is one of many weird and wonderful machines made by Circus Kinetica, a Brighton-based arts collective who make amazing things out of stuff they find lying around. They've converted the basement of Embassy Court, a landmark building on Hove seafront, into a workshop and this is the kind of stuff that emerges from it. It's inspiring stuff - typical Brighton. I do love living here...