Mark H
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Mark H
@neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
240 followers 13 following 4K posts
From #Portsmouth, UK; a keen traveller, amateur photographer, professional senior software developer (.NET backend), and interested in:

#Travel #Photography […]

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Something shot on this day back in 2018. We'd flown up the night before to spend a long weekend in Iceland's capital and spent this first day exploring on foot, hitting as many museums as possible, and one or two craft ale bars too. We grabbed an obligatory shot […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
We're outside on a cold evening with the sun low on the horizon, obscured by clouds, creating a fiery glow that fades quickly to cool, pale blue sky largely covered in thin clouds that pick up darker blues and orange-pink tints from the weak sunshine. The mostly flat ground in front of us is dark, in shadow, some concrete leading to short grass. Directly ahead of us is an isolated church building, backlist so it's approaching a silhouette form against the colours of the sky but there's still enough ambient light to pick out details. It's a concrete church with a single tower from which stepped, supporting columns of concrete flare out looking more like something built from Lego than any proper architecture. To its rear the church's main body stretches back a little and gives the impression of a back support to this rocket shape in front.
December 1, 2025 at 2:50 PM
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Might be a hip hop day to accompany work. Starting with Slick Rick. Jurassic 5 likely up next, maybe some Beastie Boys afterwards.

#vinyl #SlickRick #Music #hiphop
A vinyl album cover is sitting on the clear plastic lid of a record deck. Lights are on the deck showing that the record is playing. The album cover reads "The Adventures of Slick Rick" across the top with the artist's name written large in yellow. New York skyscrapers fill the cover, windows all lit up as it's early evening with a deep blue sky behind. On a ledge in the foreground is the artist: he's a black man with glasses and a big smile. He's crouched down with arms stretched our in front and behind as if for balance. He wears red shoes, red top, and red beret hat, black trousers and black open jacket. A thick gold chain hangs around his neck over the red top.
December 1, 2025 at 11:56 AM
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#silentsunday
We're standing at the top of a set of stone steps that lead down an alley between old stone walls in a city. All the stonework is light-coloured and everything is in shade but not dark. The steps are broken up by long landings of interlocking, rough-shaped flagstones which serve to make the descent more shallow as the alley reaches its end a few dozen metres away and angles left out of view. On one of the landings there are a couple of potted bushes on the right while bits of greenery overhang the wall on the left. Some trays of potted plants hang on the stone wall on the right too and there are a couple of mismatched lamp casings that will illuminate the steps in the evening. On the third landing down a dark, tabby cat sits on the left side facing away from us.
November 30, 2025 at 12:03 PM
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First Saturday since we got back from our last holiday that the weather's been good enough to head up to our local brewery and show our faces.

Starting with a Daisy Chains for me and a Happy Pils for my wife. Hoping that the "happy" part kicks in soon because […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
We're inside an industrial unit used as a micro brewery. On a wooden table there are two pint glasses with pale ale in them, one cloudy, one clear. Part of a wooden pallet and a steel fermentation tank are behind to the left.
November 29, 2025 at 2:55 PM
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For #schiffssamstag here's the Albatros Expeditions ship Ocean Albatros, a polar expedition ship which means her itineraries in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are well outside the price range we can afford. This was taken last year when we visited a very foggy […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
It's a cold, grey day and we're on some raised land in a coastal city looking out over the grey roof of a long building with red, corrugated metal panel walls. A flat, cold stretch of water reaches out towards low-lying land in the distance with its hilly tops vanishing in the low cloud that smothers the sky. Heading outwards and aligned so it almost looks to be resting on the roof of the foreground building there is an expedition cruise ship. It's fairly stocky, only a hundred metres long with several decks of cabin windows and shallow balconies. Other than the top deck with the bridge which is painted white the ship is a bright blue with a thick diagonal line of dark blue curving towards the front. Albatros Expeditions is written near the aft and along the front of the hull.
November 29, 2025 at 12:00 PM
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#foto Vorschlag In der Innenstadt.

Photo theme: in the city centre.

This is from Xiamen, China, and we particularly liked getting away from the modern exterior and wandering into the older part of the city where the vibrancy and life of the smaller buildings […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
We're standing on the corner of a narrow street only wide enough for one vehicle to come down. It's lined on both sides by old, four-storey buildings with a taller lower floor that supports shop fronts, some of them set back under concrete pillar-supported roofing for the floors above. Shallow balconies are the norm for the windows on the upper floors of these buildings, each with metal railings and mesh to prevent anyone falling out or apparently clambering in. This is most definitely China with the signs we can see outside some of the buildings on the eight side of the street, all bathed in bright sunlight. The road and the buildings to the left are in deep shadow. A zebra crossing is marked on the road just in front of us and the left side of the street serves as a parking space for dozens of bikes with one bright yellow one near us and leaning against a rusting lamp post. More lamp posts and wires trailing from poles complete the look of the street and there are about a dozen Chinese people walking down it in both directions. The street curves to the left towards the end and towering into the clear, pale blue sky there is a modern skyscraper, quite wide with a waved façade and with blue-tinted glass windows and panels covering every surface.
November 29, 2025 at 11:31 AM
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Reluctantly choosing the lesser of two evils to support in the next game in the House that Jerry Built.

#NFL
Screen capture from the movie Poltergeist 2, featuring a rainy scene viewed from a house looking to its garden and a southern US preacher standing there getting drenched. He wears old clothing, the sort of thing you'd see from a century or more in the past; a black jacket over white shirt with loose-hanging grey tie, and a black hat with circular rim. His face is smiling with teeth showing but there's an eerie quality to it.
November 27, 2025 at 9:35 PM
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For #ThrowBackThursday it's unmistakeably the 1970s and I think 1978 based on other photos scanned in this batch. This was my parents' home and this couple are Maureen (my mum's cousin) and her husband at the time, Simon. The big disappointment in the photo is […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
A scan of a late 1970s colour photo in the living room of a house, late at night as the curtains are closed and the people dressed for outside as if they're about to leave or have just come in from the cold. The walls are pale orange at the back and pine-panelled on the left where a dimpled pint glass can be seen hanging from a shelf hook. Curtains on the right side are dark brown and patterned with a series of thin stripes and small vertical dots in oranges, yellows, and lighter browns. The main focus is just left of view where a couple are leaning in to kiss one another, deep shadows on the wall behind from the camera flash. The woman on the left where a black and white hooped jumper over which she has a brown coat with white fake fur trim. She wears a green, bobbly, knitted beret-style hat. The main has a brown leather coat on with a large, black collar. He's dark-haired with a moustache and sideburns. It's a very 70s smooch.
November 27, 2025 at 11:01 AM
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For #meermittwoch here's sunset leaving Grenada last month. Not our favourite port of call - that's an understatement - but like all the islands we visited there were some cracking sea views, particularly once the evening came upon us.

#Photography #Travel […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
A portrait orientation view looking from a balcony on a cruise ship across a flat sea towards the horizon at dusk. The sun has just set and we're in a warm climate so there's a pleasant temperature with a relaxing feel. The sea is textured like leathery skin, a charcoal colour nearest to us but picking out more of the reflected evening sky further away and gaining soft highlights of pinks and deep purples. A narrow strip of land juts out from the far left, barely more than a silhouette scratch that joins the sea to the sky. The sky's colours are pale but warm, moving from gold at the horizon to a dusky blue at the top. Clouds like a giant crab's pincers arch across the full width of the view over the horizon, alive with mottled colours. The lower pincer has highlights of yellow and vibrant orange-pink on its underside from the setting sun with warm grey shadows above; the upper pincer is softer and less bright. Two more silhouettes punctuate the sea, both boats. A yacht with mast furled appears stationary in the distance. Nearer us a small motorboat with two people in it passes to the left leaving a long, narrow V of a wake behind.
November 26, 2025 at 9:36 AM
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A moment here to applaud Barbara Bach's hair and wonder what needs to be done to make it next year's must-have style.
Screen capture from a 1979 sci-fi movie featuring a villainous woman in close-up. She's wearing a black outfit that shows off a large amount of cleavage and upper chest, all framed with white horned trims. Her hair is hard to describe but it has been styled to almost form a hood around her face with a sharp point above her forehead. The edge of this hood hairstyle has blonde highlights but it's all got a very dry, back-combed look to it.
November 25, 2025 at 10:46 PM
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#silentsunday
We're looking down at the ground which has short green grass that fades to more patchy soil towards the top of view. Hanging down from the top are two large palm fronds. Each frond has a thin leaf rib from which all the similar, long, parallel leaves hang. They're green but yellowing with the time of the season or the overall weather conditions. An old frond, now brown, has fallen at some point and lies on the grass. In the foreground we're focussed on an iguana. It's bright green and forms a long gentle curve of a shape with its head raised up and its forelegs standing tall while its back legs are lower to the grassy surface and its long tail stretches out straight behind it. The tail has pale bands of brown colouring and the green of the scales within each band fades to light yellow the further down the tail we look. The iguana looks alert but not distressed, as if raising itself up to peer to the left and see what's in that direction.
November 23, 2025 at 12:21 PM
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For #schiffssamstag here's a view from the Old Government House on #tortola looking back over the bay we'd walked around from our home aboard Grand Princess last month.

Grand Princess, built in 1998, was the first of the Grand-class cruise ships that Princess […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
We're on a Caribbean island looking over a fringe of greenery - small, verdant trees with large fronds and leaves - and across a calm, crystal blue bay of water to the far side. In front of a low, softly jagged hill of green there is a large white cruise ship docked and facing to the right. Its aft is nearly straight down and its sharp prow is mostly obscured by leaves of one of the foreground trees. On this side of the cruise ship there's another ship, also white, smaller, and facing to the left, which is almost hidden against the identical white of the ship behind. The sky is pale and lightly clouded above the distant hill ridge but it becomes patchier and a deeper, warmer blue towards the top of the view. The scene is bathed in hot sunshine.
November 22, 2025 at 12:03 PM
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For #ThrowBackThursday here's the early 1970s in the Paulsgrove area of Portsmouth where my grandparents lived. That's my mum and dad plus me and my older cousin Claire. Fabulous fashions, and note the cigarettes in hands, a requirement of family photos of that […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
A scan of a 1970s colour photo. The colours are a little washed out and there are indications of light leaks in the camera body affecting the final photo, particularly along the top edge and top right. The image is taken outside a brick house on a sunny day, at its rear on the corner. As the house sits at the end of a small road it has grass to the right forming an extended garden barrier before the pavement to the right out of sight and in the background behind the side of the house. There are other terraced houses across the road to the rear and the back of a silver car can be seen. Standing to pose for the photo are two adults either side of two children, everyone holding hands. The woman on the left has dark hair and a dress that comes to mid-thighs, in dark blue material for the main and down the full sleeves but patterned with thin yellow and white bands across the torso area. The man on the right also has dark hair and wears dark, slightly flared trousers with a white shirt with sleeves rolled up a little. Both adults have cigarettes in their hands. Between them is a girl and a boy, both young but the girl is slightly taller and older. She has blue trousers and a red and purple top. The boy has a yellow jumper, blue shorts, long white socks, and blue sandals. The children are smiling while the parents look a little resigned.
November 20, 2025 at 10:52 AM
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#FotoVorschlag - Dinge die mit "R" beginnen.

Photo theme: Something beginning with R.

This is the Rock of Gibraltar from a 2019 visit. We had to ride the cable car to the top to see the monkeys and visit the impressive caves while we were there; that's almost […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
We're on the Rock of Gibraltar on a bright, clear day. We're on one of the upper ridges of a great rocky promontory jutting out to sea. This mountainous block of limestone has a sharp, jagged ridge running ahead of us with sheer sides dropping down a hundred metres until they meet sloping but still steep ground sliding down towards the sea to the right and signs of civilisation. We're about four hundred metres above sea level. The cliff face to the right of the ridge is white, dotted with dark grassy growths and bushes, and is in full sunlight. On the left side of the ridge the drop is less sheer with more bushes and small trees, enough space for a narrow road with some vehicles on it, and it's mostly in shade. The sky is a vibrant shade of blue touched with a coolness from the altitude. We can't quite see the horizon as it's obscured by a sea haze that still hasn't burnt off from the sun yet but poking from the top of the distant mist we can see pale silhouettes of mountainous landscape showing through.
November 20, 2025 at 10:14 AM
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Ah, a "feels like" temperature of minus zero. That's why it seems chilly.
Screen capture of a weather app with a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius above a line reading "Feels like -0°"
November 19, 2025 at 5:31 PM
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Must be in a jazz and big band mood today as I've moved onto a 29p purchase of a 1977 compilation album by K-Tel featuring such luminaries as Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman: Kings of Swing.

#vinyl #Jazz #bigband
An album cover with colours mostly in black, yellow, brown, and orange. In an oval in the centre there's a sepia-toned image of eight jazz band members with various wind instruments represented including trombone, trumpet, and clarinet. Across the top of the cover it reads "K-Tel presents Kings of Swing" while curving around the image in the centre there are the names of the artists: Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, and the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
November 19, 2025 at 11:52 AM
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First bit of #vinyl to accompany work today is another charity shop purchase from way back. A 1966 release and a great pairing between the jazz bandleader Count Basie and the fabulous voice of Tony Bennett.

#TonyBennett #countbasie #Jazz
A vinyl album cover standing upright against a blue wall background. The album is "A One Night Stand" by Tony Bennett & Count Basie as indicated by the larger lettering across the top of the white cover. Between the words are the tracks on the album in smaller lettering. The lower half of the cover has the two artists facing each other from the shoulders up, both rendered as a photo that's been painted over. The man on the left is white, has short dark hair and a pointed nose. He's wearing a thick red woollen jacket over a blue shirt with its collar just poking over the top. The man on the right is black, wearing a small, brimmed, black hat and just a little grey hair showing underneath. He has a trim moustache and is wearing a white shirt with striped blue tie.
November 19, 2025 at 11:23 AM
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For #meermittwoch here's the view looking eastwards to the Atlantic from The Blockhouse on Antigua last month. This was part of the larger Shirley Heights lookout and defences on the southern part of the island and it was very windy here. A hundred metres or […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
We're standing on a hill along the cliff tops of an island with a very winding, twisting, jagged coastline. It's a very warm day with a sky of blue that becomes almost white on the right side of view nearer where the sun is blasting in from. Puffy white clouds form on the horizon and billow up in places but none cover us right now and the view is largely bathed in sunshine. The landmass falls away from us in front fairly gently then drops out of view and ahead we can see a peninsula raised up on layered, sandy rock hooking outwards to form a curved creek that comes inland. Most of everything is green, either short, bright grass or tough-looking bushes in a darker shade but there are patches of sandy soil and darker rock showing through; signs of battering by the weather coming in off the shore. It feels warm and the view is enchanting but there's a sense of a strong wind about to shake you around if you relax too much.
November 19, 2025 at 9:58 AM
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Something from my wife's collection now and it's 1968 and it's The Beatles with their self-titled (or white) album. I'm one of those people who finds the Beatles massively overrated so I've never listened to this before although I imagine I'll have heard a lot […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
A close, low angle looking over a vinyl record playing. The strobe dots on the turntable are blurred from this angle. The centre of the black vinyl has a green apple label. The record arm stylus coming in from the right and playing the first track on the album is green. The plastic lid of the record deck is up showing some reflections in the background and a pale blue wall behind.
November 18, 2025 at 12:23 PM
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Now that I can play #vinyl again while I work I've decided to pick out some questionable or lucky charity shops purchases from over the years. First up is a 1959 recording of a selection of songs from the musical Chu Chin Chow which opened in London in 1916 and […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
A vinyl album sleeve is standing upright on top of a black speaker, supported behind by a chrome and glass lamp, in a room with dark blue walls. The light from a window is reflecting off part of the album cover. The cover depicts a pale silhouette of a pagoda over a trio of pictures of women in different oriental outfits in dancing poses. The overall colours are pale pinks and warm beiges although the central woman is against a green panel. A label reads "His Master's Voice" at the top right over the album title "Vocal Gems from Chu-Chin Chow" and a list of some of the singers performing. At the bottom it indicates that the arrangement is by Michael Collins and his orchestra.
November 18, 2025 at 11:27 AM
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When we were on Sint Maarten a few weeks ago we made sure to visit the Yoda Guy Movie Exhibit, run by Nick Maley, special effects make-up artist on many films. Great memorabilia, behind-the-scenes bits, and a nice guy to chat to as well. I particularly liked all […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
Nine photos of casts of actors' heads, arranged in a three by three grid. Each head is a mould of the actor with eyes closed and hairless and each is lit by a single coloured light. Four appear purple, one is blue, one is orange, two are green, and one is white, and the lighting casts deep shadows across the faces.
November 15, 2025 at 8:14 PM
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For #schiffssamstag this week here's a snap from #antigua a few weeks ago. Behind the catamaran is Regal Princess, one of two Princess Cruises ships in the port on that day. We were visiting while cruising on the other ship, Grand Princess. We've cruised on […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
A portrait orientation image taken on a hot, bright, and humid day with a patchwork sky of deep blue behind puffy white clouds. We're standing at the edge of a harbour of calm, green-blue water. A few metres across the water from us there's a small tourist catamaran moored up. Its hulls are bright red and its sail is furled. In the distance behind the catamaran, alongside a long pier, there's a large cruise ship docked with her sharp prow pointing towards the land on our right. The ship is mostly white with nine decks of balcony cabins running along the sides above the lifeboats on its promenade deck level. Stylistic blue artwork on the ship's prow depicts a woman's head with her hair forming waves undulating back along the hull.
November 15, 2025 at 1:29 PM
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To the #1980s and our family holiday to #morocco for #ThrowBackThursday this week, mostly because I've recently been contacted by an author of James Bond books for a chat about our stay at the hotel you can't see here, as it was a filming location in The Living […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
A scan of a colour photograph taken in the late 1980s, showing signs of graininess and a little light damage at the very top of the picture causing a ripple effect of washed-out colour. The image is from a high vantage point on a rocky hill, some of the rocks of which form the left border of the shot. We're gazing out and down at a perfect sandy beach, dark golden yellow and completely clear of any people or objects. The sea is to the right, a deep blue-green and flat from this height and distance but with a long undulating edge of foaming waves and a deep border of damp sand on the beach that suggests the water is rushing in a huge distance on what must be a shallow shoreline that drops off sharply out to sea. The sky is clear blue, although the photo's age dulls this a little. It feels warm and windy up here.
November 13, 2025 at 10:10 AM
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Our raspberries are still pushing out fruit as we approach mid-November. We had our first raspberry back in the middle of June so this is a very long fruiting season now.

#Gardening #garden #fruit #Raspberry
We're in a garden looking closely at a raspberry cane on which there are over a dozen fruits, some almost fully ripe - large and red - with others that are still small and green. A few have been picked, leaving just the pink-white stem of the raspberry behind. In the background there's indication of more fruiting plants close by, a patch of short lawn, and a brick wall with tree behind it forming the rest of this garden. The backs of houses can be seen beyond that and it's a cool, mostly clear day with the weak sun hitting them although the garden here is in shade.
November 12, 2025 at 2:05 PM
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#FotoVorschlag - Schaufenster

Photo theme - shop window

A constant sight for many decades here in #portsmouth was Squirrels, an antique/junk shop run by a very religious guy who frequently went off on missions to give aid to the Kurdish people. Bizarrely, a […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
We're standing across the road from a shop that fills the view with a small metal railing in front of it protecting pedestrians from any traffic passing by. The shop is not in the best of conditions and features a large pair of clear glass window panes on the right taking up two thirds of the width of the shot, an open doorway set back and angled inwards slightly, then a space for a tall, plastic, revolving book rack with a number of secondhand paperbacks in it. Above the shop window there is a weathered sign in dark green with orange writing outlined in white reading "Squirrels" and beneath that, "Supporting the Kurdish outreach ministry". On the right side is a phone number beneath the description "Antique & secondhand furniture, house clearances, single items, bric-a-brac, collectables bought & sold." The shop window is filled with small items for sale, stacked behind and above one another to almost completely fill the space: lamps, mugs, small statues, dolls, and a large number of Betty Boop figurines of various sizes dominate. A colourful flag proclaiming "Jesus Christ is alive today" hangs in the back and written across the glass in large white paint strokes it reads "Save the Kurds".
November 12, 2025 at 10:26 AM