Taking only photographs – leaving only footprints
Opened in May 2021 this is the Royal Horticultural Society’s fifth public gardens. It’s in the village of Worsley in Salford on the grounds of the former Worsley New Hall estate. This square pool is in the middle of the Weston Wall Garden with the Fruit House and Mediterranean House behind. The chimney in the middle is from the old power station that powered the stately home. If you are in Manchester I recommend visiting RHS Bridgewater. It was a wonderful day out.
These fireworks were captured a few years back at the British Firework Championship at Bulie Hill Park in Salford. I am not sure why I didn’t publish this back when it was captured, probably because I had more “classic” looking firework explosions. This photograph looks like a bunch of flowers on a black background in my opinion. I was thinking of cleaning it up in Photoshop to get rid of the shoot offs to make it look even more like a bunch of flowers but that’s crossing a line that I am not willing to cross.
This is a detail on the back wall of Ordsall Hall in Salford. This historic house dates back over 750 years. I believe that this part of the building is some of the oldest surviving part of the present hall which was built in the 15th century. One of the things that caught my eye when I walked past this wall are the simple white flower shapes set into the timber construction. The original image out of the camera looked very flat, but when you look closely at the texture you can see a lot of the hand made imperfections in the wood. This is enhanced by the post processing to a high contrast black and white photograph.
Outside Ordsall Hall in Salford I saw this family of wooden swans and thought they could be worth a picture, but as we were running slightly late I walked past and into the hall. After our guided tour of the hall I had some time to explore the outside of the building and revisited these swans. The biggest problem I had was the background. On the left is the side of the building and on the right is the visitor car park. Just off frame behind the sculptures from this angle is a wooden fence, so the only way I could get them isolated on the grass like this was a tight crop from this angle.