David Halliday

@davidhalliday.bsky.social

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Posting from my photo archives two or three times a month

Internal view of a diamond-leaded bay window. The interior of the room is almost black, making the frame and leading of the window stand out in silhouette. This window, at Lacock Abbey, is the subject of the world's oldest surviving negative and arguably the fons et origo of the negative-positive process that underpinned photography for almost one and a half centuries. Ironically, this is a digital image that has been "processed" with mild adjustments to brightness and contrast.
An unpaved pathway running into the distance through woodland in full leaf. In the mid-ground a dead tree leans over the path, it's lower trunk gnarled where branches have been cut off in the past. The image's colour channels have been edited to give the moss growing on the trunk a slightly unreal deep red colour.
A man leaning forward across a stone-topped concrete table in a sunny street. He is skinning a large fish with a knife while another man looks on. The fish's mouth is open, displaying sharp teeth.
A polished deep copper tray called a coolship (koelschip) covers the floor of an enclosure with louvred panels set into the walls. In the brewing of lambic beers, the coolship, as the name suggests, was used to cool hot wort before fermentation using airborne wild yeasts.
Book cover for The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. It depicts a mass of old computer equipment hanging above the curved surface of Earth.
A stream of brown water flanked and backed by lush tropical vegetation and tall palm trees. In the midground there is a bridge across the stream with people standing and looking at the scene. In the background a strutted hexagonal lattice structure reveals that the entire landscape is enclosed within a dome.
Cartoon picture of an elephant looking queazy.
A rust-red "cliff face" with a clear blue sky above. (Actually the eroded 3-foot high side of a tin mine spoil heap)
The Levant tin mine and the Pendeen Lighthouse on the coast near St Just, Cornwall. Under a blue sky a number of granite buildings stand on the edge of a rocky coast. There is a walled pond in the foreground, two isolated chimney stacks beyond the buildings, and on a headland in the far distance are white walls enclosing white buildings and a lighthouse tower.
gif of Imperial officer saying "It's an older meme sir, but it checks out"
A frost-covered sundial set on a block of granite. The gnomon is particularly heavily frosted, with ice growing out from the surface in long spikes. A weak winter sun illuminates the dial, revealing that the time is approximately half past nine in the morning.
Church, tower and outlying buildings viewed through an entrance comprising two square pillars and a bow-shaped arch surmounted by a small cross. The church has salmon pink walls with white detailing and the roof includes a blue dome that is characteristic of many Santorini buildings.
A bench moulded in the shape of an open book. The seat and front apron are painted with a city (Warsaw?) skyline and banknotes floating in the air. The back of the bench shows three figures seated on an elongated cushion. As viewed, the one on the left is a moustachioed strongman in his striped costume, in the middle is a cat holding a hot drink in one paw, and on the right is a man wearing a cap and black and white checked trousers. All three are reading books.
Street art sticker on a black, blue, red and white background and marked with a pattern of raised dots portraying an outlined figure. A speech bubble above the figure's head says "Practice Persistent Resistance".
Under a dark blue sky, white and orange crags dominate the horizon. The foreground is a flat desert pan fringed with scrub grass.
A robin perched in a frost-covered bush. Its red breast provides a stark contrast with the black and white of the bare branches coated with a coarse rime.
Close-up of a robin perched on a decayed wooden fencepost.
Dunes covered in tufts of grass lead down to a beach where alternating bands of sand and water separate the land from the sea. The cloudy sky, with barely a patch of blue, casts a dull light over the scene. One solitary walker is just visible on the sand. Almost deserted at this time of year, the 5km beach is a popular holiday destination in the summer.
A view from the promenade area in front of the Royal Chateau of Blois. Rooftops, chimneys, and gable ends form a geometric pattern in shades of brick, buff, and stone. Beyond, the three towers of the Church of Saint Nicolas rise into a hazy blue sky.
Under a dull grey sky at the Kennedy Space Center, six rocket assemblies stand on concrete pads surrounded by paths and low planted beds. From left to right the rockets are: Gemini-Titan II, Mercury-Atlas, Atlas-Agena, Mercury-Redstone, Delta, and Juno II.
Bali local kite festival. Members of a local association or club lifting their large black, red and yellow kite in preparation for launch. The kite's construction includes two wooden crossmembers that are curved due to the tension of rubber straps - in flight these straps vibrate, resulting in a pervasive sound similar to a motorcycle engine that can be heard across the island.
A mountainside, with rocks forming the silhouette of a cat appearing from the mist. The Sphinx or Cat Rock is a landmark that can be seen when following the Climbers Traverse as it skirts the south and west side of Great Gable in the Lake District.
Black and white internal view of the Eiffel Tower, taken in 1977. A cage of interconnecting beams and crossmembers surrounds an elevator trackway that changes from sloping to vertical as it leaves the leg of the tower.
A stone path leads upwards and to the left across a large grassy mound, eventually reaching the broken gatehouse of the castle. To the left are the collapsed remains of the bailey wall, while on top of the mound on the right are the walls of the keep. Corfe Castle was a Royalist stronghold during the English Civil War and when it eventually fell to the Parliamentarians it was slighted.
View from the top of the southern tower of Notre Dame de Paris. Looking south-east, the roof and spire of the cathedral are visible left foreground with the Ile Saint-Louis beyond. Further still, Paris fades into the hazy horizon.
Image of two buildings with orange and grey cladding. Post-processed to create a multi-layered effect that gives the impression that the buildings are shaking, then a vignette applied. The buildings themselves are part of the St Giles development in central London.
A high-contrast, vignetted, black and white image of two rat skeletons on a wooden bench, one of which has its head resting on the side of a log. Technical information: Olympus OMD EM1 mkii, 12-40mm f2.8. Image cropped and post-processed using Silver Efex Pro2 and Analog Efex Pro2 PS plug-ins.
St Giles Fair, Oxford September 1976. A woman and a balloon seller in the street with a small child standing between them with his back to the camera. The balloons are mostly black with a white skull-and-crossbones on them, but the woman is selecting a while balloon illustrated with gollies.
A daylight full moon rests on the back of Uluru. The red sandstone's cracks and gullies are thrown into relief by the setting sun and the sky is starting to turn pink.
Blood Soaked Land and Seas of Red, a 2014 art installation of 888,246 ceramic poppies on the walls and in the moat of the Tower of London. In the image a cascade of poppies falls from a high opening in the Tower wall to pool and flow along the moat. Ceramic artist Paul Cummins and conceptual designer Tom Piper.
A white structure with a wall enclosing a tree, the Zoodochos Pigi Church is set into a rocky hill face and guards a cave with a spring. A steep stone path winds past the wall and up the hillside.
Hand-shaped broken tree trunk extending from a rock cleft on a beach in Guernsey.
High wall decorated with painted concrete sculptures of chinese dragons and other animals in the Tiger Balm Garden, Hong Kong. The photo was taken in 1994, and the garden was demolished 20 years later to make way for an apartment block.
The last surviving Oxford college barge at its mooring alongside Christchurch Meadow on the Thames in 1976. Taken during Eights Week, there are a number of students standing on the upper deck of its ornate white superstructure. The barge sank many years ago and was removed from the river.
Interior of the Hagia Sophia undergoing renovation in 2003. On the right side of the photo a tower of scaffolding extends from floor to ceiling.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Artist sketching a semi-reclined sculpture of a male in chains.
View through a stone portico framing an open doorway, showing a large sculpted face in the room beyond.
Street art: Buddha in the Abhaya Mudra pose with a bandaged hand and in a neck brace.
Jelly ear fungus and ivy on the stump of an elder tree.