Simon Lowe

A colour photo of the platform of Jesmond Metro Station as seen through the dirty, rain-streaked window of a Tyne & Wear Metro carriage. The poster on the platform wall and the figure of a passenger walking out of the frame on the left are both blurred into abstraction by the beads of rain that streak the window’s surface. These metro carriages are gradually being phased out and soon photos like this will be impossible to take. The new design of metros have seats that face inwards, so only a contortionist or a passenger with very understanding fellow travellers will be able to point a lens towards the windows. Also, Nexus who run the metro network seem to be making a a concerted effort to keep the new windows clean on the outside, while the new air-conditioned interiors stop them fogging up. This is why I take photos. There’s no point in waiting until next time. There won’t be a next time. Only a new time. With cleaner windows.

Dirty window.

Jesmond Metro Station, Newcastle upon Tyne.

September, 2025.

#📸 #photography

Was there on Monday - really enjoyed it.

UPDATE: Exhibition extended until 13th September!

Get yourselves along.

📸🖼️⚓️🖼️📸

Colour photo of the view from the Old Low Light, North Shields looking across the mouth of the River Tyne. The red Herd Groyne light at South Shields is on the horizon.

Colour photo of exhibition room of the Old Low Light. Framed colour photo by Pete Robinson on left of shot, on the right the New Low Light can be seen through the window frame.

Quick wander around North Shields this morning.

Called in to the Old Low Light to Pete Robinson’s exhibition Harvest From The Deep documenting the fishing community. Also includes some Nick Hedges’ photos on loan from Side Gallery.

Last day Saturday.

Well worth a look.

#📸 #photography

Rails & sleepers.

Monkseaton Metro Station, Whitley Bay.

August, 2025.

#📸 #photography

They’re among the best in British indie. So why have Field Music become a Doors cover band? Faced with ‘catastrophic financial doom’ in a difficult industry, the Sunderland outfit explain why imitating Jim Morrison is their way to survive

Because the creative economy, stupid.

Fair play to them.

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/a...

Looking through a self-published photo-book. Photos excellent, design great, but captions filled with typos. 🤦🏻

You may think the photos are the main thing, maybe words aren’t your thing, but the ones you use are just as important.

Please get someone to proofread your copy before going to print.

Colour photo of tailor’s mannequins in a shop front in Hoi An. The mannequins are gold skinned and blank faced, like a Daft Punk tribute band. Tight crop on this one as the tailors don’t like photos - supposedly so their designs aren’t copied. Or so that others don’t see their own designs copied? Who knows…

Make it, face it, hem it, stitch it.

Tailors, Hoi An, Vietnam.

July, 2025.

#📸 #photography

A colour photo of the market in Hoi An, Vietnam. Traders and customers on mopeds weave past me and each other. In the background the awnings of stalls and the tops of palm trees. From last month’s trip to Vietnam.

Mopeds in the market.

Hoi An, Vietnam.

July, 2025.

#📸 #photography

Colour photo of the paperback edition of Helen Castor’s excellent The Eagle And The Hart. A great study of the reigns of Richard II and the man who deposed him, Henry IV.

Current reading.

A thin-skinned narcissist, surrounded by flatterers; a cabal of power-hungry oligarchs, impeachments, threats to the constitution and interminable war.

Same sh!t, different century. 😕

📚

A black & white photo of the Grey’s Quarter entrance to Eldon Square Shopping Centre in Newcastle. The massive digital screen above the doorway is offline. Instead of the glossy ads it usually broadcasts seamlessly on a loop, the screen is striped and overlaid with a DOS command prompt window, whose message reads: ‘The system cannot find the path specified.’ Unfortunately the shutter speed I used meant the end of the message is blurred because it was slower than the refresh rate of the screen. As well as a glimpse behind the curtain of modern tech, I liked the way all the passersby are walking in different directions. There is no specified path, folks, just do your own thing - we’ll get by anyway.

‘The system cannot find the path specified.’

Eldon Square Shopping Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne.

June, 2025.

😆👍🏻

A black and white photo of an abandoned coat on a traffic bollard seen this morning. As I was approaching it, the way the coat was hung upon the post made it look alive. Like a figure crouched and half buried in the street, head bowed and trying to move against the pavement it was trapped in. I took a couple of photos then went on my way. By this afternoon the coat was gone. If you see something that interests you, take a photo. It won’t be there next time. Because there won’t be a next time.

“You must go on.

I can’t go on.

I’ll go on.”

Blackett Street, Newcastle upon Tyne.

May, 2025.

#📸 #photography

New zine ‘Carnival’ by @checkmybadself.bsky.social documenting Notting Hill Carnival over the last few years.

Great photos, highly recommended.

📚📸📚

#📸 #photography #photozines

YouTube video by Pictures On My Mind Photo Zine Review: Street Photography, Notting Hill Carnival, Caustic water and more!

Big thanks to @mredthompson.bsky.social for including ‘Round Here’ in his photo zine round up.

Ed’s ‘how to’ series on self-publishing was a huge help while putting it together.

I still have a handful left, so if you’d like one, get in touch.

youtu.be/iAOFyrM_YeM?...

#📸 #photography #zine

A colour photo I took while leaving the house last week of light refracted through the stained glass in our front door onto the inside wall of the porch. The scribbles of yellow light at the centre looked, to me, like the figure of a woman surrounded by grey washes of other refracted light on the light blue walls of our porch. Maybe it looks something else entirely to you.

Persephone.

April, 2025.

#📸 #photography

A colour photo of the Upper Promenade at Whitley Bay. A red sign on rusted metal legs, weighed down by a yellow sandbag. The sign reads ‘Pedestrians’ with an arrow pointing left. Behind the sign is the promenade railing and behind that, the North Sea at high tide.

Can’t get there from here…

Whitley Bay, April, 2025.

#📸 #photography

A black & white photo of Mount Fuji, towering over the hills and mountains surrounding Lake Ashi in Kanagawa Prefecture. The summit and slopes of Fuji-san are covered in snow, cloud passes in front obscuring its lower sides. A small boat is in the foreground close to the lake shore; the roofs and windows of some buildings on the lake side are visible too. This was taken from one of the pleasure boats that cross Lake Ashi, a crater lake in the Hakone region of Japan.

Fuji-san.

From Lake Ashi, Hakone, Kanagawa.

April, 2019.

#📸 #photography #🇯🇵

Thomas Pynchon announces Shadow Ticket, his first novel in more than a decade The elusive 87-year-old author’s new book is a noir caper set during the big band era following a detective in search of a cheese heiress

I kinda thought Bleeding Edge would be all we got, so this is a nice surprise.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

TONIGHT WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING A CLOWN-DISCO.

A colour photo of the crowds following the open top bus parade of the Newcastle United squad, celebrating their first domestic trophy in 70 years. Taken from the off-ramp of the central motorway, this normally busy dual carriageway is filled with people, including one fan who’s climbed on top of the bus stop to show his support.

Toon, toon…

Newcastle United’s Carabao Cup Trophy Parade.

Great North Road, Newcastle upon Tyne.

March, 2025.

#📸 #photography

Hessle Road, Hull, 1980, by Homer Sykes. Gillian Carrington is seven months pregnant with Sonya, holding two-year-old Scott’s hand. (From Homer's book Colour Works: The 1980s and 90s).

Happy birthday! 🎈

A black & white photo of the open top deck of the bus taking the Newcastle United cup-winning squad through the city to the club’s celebrations on the Town Moor. Taken from the off-ramp of the Central Motorway which was closed while the parade was under way.

Local heroes.

Newcastle United Carabao Cup Trophy Parade.

Great North Road, Newcastle upon Tyne.

March, 2025.

#📸 #photography

PODCAST: A Photographic Life, Episode 246: Plus Photographer Richard Sharum In episode 246 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the issues facing photographers in 2023, the fragile nature of social media and the return of classic American docume…

unitednationsofphotography.com/2023/01/18/p...

A storm-chaser beneath ferocious rotating clouds: Richard Sharum’s best photograph ‘Our hair stood on end as the air around us became supercharged. There were telegraph poles and hailstones the size of oranges dropping out of the sky’

Richard Sharum’s best shot.

(And the best advice at the end of the article too.)

#📸 #photography

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Saddened to hear of the passing of the great Paul Mcdonough. His book Headed West is a firm favourite 🩶

A black and white photo of a man asleep on the metro. He is sitting, his head leaning against the side of the carriage, one foot resting on the edge of the seat opposite him. His backpack rests on the seat opposite too. I don’t often take candids on the metro but I liked the way the light was falling on him and he seemed so relaxed - a peaceful start to his day.

Sunday morning.

Tyne & Wear Metro, March, 2025.

#📸 #photography

A black and white photo of Grainger Street, Newcastle. In front of the facade of a restaurant, 2 council workers in hi-vis jackets stand on the pavement, their bodies are obscured from the waist down by the steam rising from the machine they are using to remove chewing gum from the pavement. The machine itself is obscured by the steam too. The pavement has been closed for cleaning with bollards joined with striped tape. A woman in a raincoat walks in the road past the men and out of shot.

Steam, Grainger Street.

Newcastle upon Tyne.

March, 2025.

#📸 #photography

From a more peaceful time.
Before the ru**ians invaded again - day 1118
At home
From ‘Travelogue 2 - A thousand days of longing’
#ukraine