Mercado de Nuestra Señora de África

I'm always a fan of street and indoor markets, so when in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in November (one of the ports of call on our Canaries cruise) I made for the well known indoor fruit, fish and vegetable market (well, it's partly an indoor market) of Mercado de Nuestra Señora de África, on Calle San Sebastian. It's somewhat African in influence and quite lively. I've included a few images to give an impression. Though not as exciting as some of the markets I've seen in the last couple of years or so, it's certainly worth a look.

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French markets

While away in France over Christmas and the New Year I took the opportunity to visit a couple of French street markets. Interesting in itself, this was partly designed to find some images for the latest monthly assignment in The Guardian's Camera Club. We had the chance to visit street markets in Cahors and the smaller town of Prayssac, both in the valley of the Lot. As I only had my compact camera with me (a Canon Ixus) the results were somewhat mixed, but at least I had the chance to take some candid photographs withouth feeling intrusive. I chose six images to load into Flickr and tag for the Guardian group, but here are four different ones. Street markets are one of my favourite subjects, though with so much going on at times it can be difficult to capture something interesting enough and sufficiently focused.

The pain d'epice was a delicious spiced cake, made organically by a local producer, but we winced at the price and in the end paid almost five euros for around 200 gms. It tasted superb though.

A Birmingham weekend

Earlier in December I had a weekend in Birminmgham, including a couple of visits to the well known Frankfurt Christmas Market that is open every day from the middle of November to a couple of days before Christmas. It does seem to get bigger every year. Apart from ther usual stalls selling candles, ceramics, small toys, candlea and jewellery, there are the food and drink stalls and this time the market has extended almost to the ICC. At this end it's a mixture of all types of stalls taking advantage of the passing trade: the German stallholders are concentrated in New Street and up to the Art Gallery. But you can now get hold of pork scratchings or ostrich burgers. What most appeals to me is the atmosphere around the food stalls: the sausages, chips and fried mushrooms, the crowds, watching people cooking the hot food. As always seems to happen, it rained most of the time I was there, but it never seriously dampened people's enthusiasm for the event.

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I also had a great evening out at a relatively new swing dance event in Birmingham - Hot Ginger. 'A night of retro style and retro dance'. Very good vallue, a very friendly cvrowd and superb swing music to dance to, in Moseley. I had the mobile with me and took a few pictures making use of available light. Details on http://www.hotginger.org/. I did try to find myself a decent Hawaiian shirt to buy, but without success - this might have to wait for the warmer weather to arrive. The organisers are aiming to hold one of these events about once a month, and I hope to be able to make my way across to Birmingham again soon.

Norwich sunrise

There was a beautiful sunrise here in Norwich on Wednesday around 8.00, and here are a couple of shots I took on my mobile. These were taken standing in front of the window next to my desk,

looking south towards Poringland

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Lens culture

I've recently returned to following some of the photographic blogs, including the excellent Lens Culture.
http://www.lensculture.com/webloglc/index.html
In particular I noticed the entry about the Paris Photo 2009 exhibition that took place last month, including the piece on art market anarchy:

'A surprise act of art market anarchy took place just outside the entrance to the exclusive gala VIP opening night at Paris Photo 2009 last week. While the crowd of well-dressed international art collectors began to enter the giant hall at the Louvre, dozens of pranksters quickly dumped thousands and thousands of anonymous vintage photos into a giant heap, and tossed handfuls of photographs in the air. "Free, free, free!"A surprise act of art market anarchy took place just outside the entrance to the exclusive gala VIP opening night at Paris Photo 2009 last week. While the crowd of well-dressed international art collectors began to enter the giant hall at the Louvre, dozens of pranksters quickly dumped thousands and thousands of anonymous vintage photos into a giant heap, and tossed handfuls of photographs in the air. "Free, free, free!" Even in this art-loving socialist capital, this act caused a momentary cognitive disconnect....'

I'd really like to have been able to gather up a random selection of photographs in this way and try to make something of them with a montage. And maybe the Paris photo 2010 should be pencilled into my diary for next winter.

Black and white portraits

I've participated from time to time in the Guardian Camera Club's monthly photographic assignments. Each month an assignment is published and you can submit up to six pictures through the Flickr group (appropriately tagged). For instance October's theme was rivers, and the current November project (submissions up to 14 December) is black and white portraiture in the style of Jane Bown.

At the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich a week or so ago I took a few shots of Teresa, and I've included a couple of these here. All done in something of a rush, but that's the way it has been the last few weeks.

Apple day at Gressenhall

On 25 October we visited Gressenhall Museum of Rural Life in Norfolk for the annual apple day - the purpose of the event is in celebrating the many varieties of apple including the rare ones. I did take quite a few pictures, mainly in the apple identification tent, and towards the end of the day, in the Gressenhall orchards. While there I decided to join the East of England Apple and Orchards Project - which aims to help conserve local orchards and local apple varieties. According to their magazine the five fruit trees in our back garden countsa as an orchard! I've included a few photographs here. Apples make quite undemanding subjects for a photographer.