Bridging the Wear

Wearmouth Bridges, Sunderland

The River Wear lies just to the south of South Shields and enters the North Sea at Sunderland. The city is bifurcated by the river with the older Monkwearmouth, Seaburn, and Fulwell to the north and the younger city centre, Grangetown, Ryhope, and Hendon to the south.

Two bridges cross the Wear near it’s mouth, carrying traffic into and away from the busy city centre, on the left the road bridge and on the right the rail bridge.

Camera details; Pentax K100D, 28mm lens, /750 second, f9.5, iso 200, polarising filter.

Map

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Faceoff

Thoughtful art

An interesting face off between the human and the metal mesh in this thought provoking work of art at Bede’s World in Jarrow.

Converted to black and white and colour toned with Photoshop.

Camera details; Pentax K100D, 28mm lens, 1/90 second, f5.6 iso 200

Map

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

“Hello, welcome”

“Can I borrow your brolly?”

Juan Munoz’ artwork “The Conversation Piece” consists of 22 bronze figures such as these situated at Littlehaven Beach, South Shields. Conversation Piece is part of the Art on the Riverside project, the largest programme of public art in the UK, funded by a £3.5m National Lottery grant and £2.7m from public and private sources. Locally they are more popularly known as “The Weebles”.

As you can see it was a miserable wet day when I photographed these four, and they looked as though they fancied the shelter of my umbrella!

Camera details; Pentax K100D, 28mm lens, 1/350 second, f3.5, iso 200

Map

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Labour saving

Bowling in the West Park

Even in this leisurely sport of bowls in South Shields, there is little point in breaking your back to pick up those woods. You may as well get yourself a labour saving device!

Pictured in the West Park.

Camera details: Pentax K100D, 300mm lens, 1/250 second, f5.6, iso 200

Map

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Wedding dance

Westoe Brass Band

Yesterday saw the start of the South Tyneside Summer Festival, and a very damp start it was this year too. The skies were leaden grey, it rained, and it was quite cold in South Shields, such a shame.

One of the first events was a concert at the Amphitheatre on Sea Road by the Westoe Brass Band, they ought to have been performing on the central dais there, but because of the poor weather they had to squeeze into a small space underneath the covered promenade walkway. There wasn’t a huge crowd to greet them in the rain either, but a few hardy souls turned out, bringing their deck chairs with them to listen to two hours of strident marching tunes and flowing airs. A zoom in to the music sheets (held in place with clothes pegs) shows that they are just striking up with the “Cossack Wedding Dance”.

After I’d enjoyed their music I wandered over to the Bents Park where there was a rally for historic commercial vehicles, I’ll show you some of them during the next week.

Camera details; Pentax K100D, 28mm lens, 1/60 second, f3.5, fill flash, iso 200

Map

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::