Oh, What A Circus #4

Posted on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 by Gary

Or…

Oh, What A Disappointment!

I managed to leave work an hour earlier today, and did the usual rush-home-grab-camera-gear-jump-in-car-and-rush-over routine. But as I turned the corner which brought the high-rise into view in the distance, my heart sank – I could see that the high-rise was now painted in rainbow colours. 🙁

Oh well, sniff, let’s see what photos I can get anyway. At least I can stop rushing now…

All over

6:35pm Clearly, it’s all over – the crowds have gone home. Only the young kids are left, playing their little games.

I spoke with the two production crew members you can see in the lower right corner here. It turns out that the big explosion of colour on the high-rise block went off at about 5:15pm – just as I was getting on the train to travel home from the city centre. I suppose it’s some consolation that I didn’t just miss the main event.

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Oh, What A Circus #3

Posted on Monday, July 24, 2006 by Gary

I was busy at work today – we have a supplier installing a new system and I’ve to become involved with supporting it once they depart – and didn’t get to leave until just before 6pm. I had to rush home to grab my gear and then jump in the car and drive straight over. Fortunately, they waited on me.

6:50pm Actually, it seems that they’re waiting on the light to be just right. It sure looks fine to me! “Okay guys – I’m ready!”

High-rise block, covered with paint barrels

Ooh, look! they’ve finished covering the main face of the high-rise block with paint barrels – it should be really impressive when that lot blows…

There are definitely more people here tonight than on each of the previous evenings and the mood is quite jolly.

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Oh, What A Circus #2

Posted on Sunday, July 23, 2006 by Gary

After yesterday’s anti-climax at the site of the filming of the new Sony advert for their Bravia brand, I had decided not to bother going back today and, instead, just spend a lazy day in the flat. Then, at about 5:15, my phone rang… It was Carol, calling from the site, saying that she thought it would be worth while coming over after all… The weather was sunny out, so I had little choice – well, what would you have done? I grabbed my stuff and drove over to the site as quick as I could safely manage…

Crowd waiting, while preparations are carried out

6:11pm After being disappointed with my position yesterday, I started off here. This looked as if it would give me a good position to see the action. Fortunately, they haven’t set of the big effect of “painting” the high-rise block yet. And look! Many more buckets have been added to the main face – if you recall, there was only a solitary bucket in the top right corner yesterday afternoon.

You can see from the low-rise block that they have carried out more afternoon work (again) – the yellow stripes you can see here weren’t there when I left yesterday.

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Oh, What A Circus #1

Posted on Saturday, July 22, 2006 by Gary

5:50pm A bit of a crowd had gathered to watch day one of the shooting of the new Sony Bravia advert, but not as much as I had thought there might be given the publicity from the Evening Times yesterday. I wanted to get a wide view of all the explosives throwing paint up onto the tower block, so I mounted my camera on the tripod and remained quite far back. After chatting with some local kids (they wanted to look through the camera’s viewfinder), I decided I should really move in closer.

The waiting crowds

6:18pm This was the scene from closer in.

I had no idea what was going to be happening or when. And then I became unhappy with this position and decided to move. Of course, my heart was in my mouth as I moved further round – just in case they let rip while I was moving!

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Oh, What A Circus #0

Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 by Gary

What could all this mean?

  • 70,000 litres of paint
  • 358 single bottle bombs
  • 33 sextuple air cluster bombs
  • 22 triple hung cluster bombs
  • 268 mortars
  • 33 triple mortars
  • 22 double mortars
  • 358 meters of weld
  • 330 meters of steel pipe
  • 57 km of copper wire

Sony are in Glasgow to film the sequel(!) to their 2005 Bravia advert – the one which had all the colourful rubber balls bouncing down the streets of San Francisco. I had seen the advert on television last year, but hadn’t really paid it much attention. Reviewing it on the web site reveals an impressive piece of filming and editing.

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Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum – It’s Back!

Posted on Saturday, July 15, 2006 by Gary

After a closure of three years and a refurbishment bill of not far off £30 million, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum has reopened its doors to huge crowds.

2002 was the last year that Kelvingrove opened in July and the average weekly figures were 28,000 visitors per week. It reopened on Tuesday 11th July, 2006 and in the first week over 141,000 visitors walked through the doors. I was there on the Saturday – though they wouldn’t tell me my number! 🙂

The weather was very warm and sunny – and the place was heaving!

Rather than drive around endlessly, trying to find a place to park my car, I used public transport. From the city centre, I got one of the numerous buses which goes out past Kelvingrove. I got off a short distance before I reached Kelvingrove since I wanted to make the final approach on foot (anticipating that there might be a decent photo). What a grand way to approach the building on such a day as this!

Kelvingrove, approached from the east

This shot shows the approach to Kelvingrove from the east and we see the building almost end on. The Argyle Street entrance is reached at the left. (The darker brown building in the background on the right is the Main Building of Glasgow University.)

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The View From My Kitchen Window

Posted on Sunday, March 12, 2006 by Gary

It snowed through the night last night. I mean, it really snowed last night.

The view from my kitchen window

We don’t often get much snow in Glasgow in the winter and when we do, it doesn’t normally last for long – in fact, it tends to be a bit of a novelty. Well, for the first day or two anyway. 🙂

A thick layer of snow covered everything when I finally got up this morning. This was the view at lunchtime today from my kitchen window. What made this fall of snow stand out was not so much the amount of snow which fell, but the fact that it fell in mid-March!

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Oban At Dusk

Posted on Sunday, December 7, 2003 by Gary

Oban from above, at dusk

I went for a run today with Carol and we ended up at McCaig’s Folly, Oban. I got this shot from the viewing platform, a couple of hours or so after sundown.

The view is looking roughly north-west, past the tip of the small island of Kerrera which sits across the mouth of Oban Bay. Coming in from the right beyond that we see, the tip of the island of Lismore, before the hills of the mainland appear again faintly in the distance. The large brown church building in the centre of the image is St Columba’s Cathedral.

[Click on the small image above to see a larger version…]

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