Purple Clouds Photography – Phil Oldham’s Photoblog

Manchester Airport once again closed to air traffic due to the excessive snow unloaded on the region over the night of the 4th January. Looking for something different I went to the southern side of the airport to get a shot looking over towards the terminal building. To my surprise, and despite continuing snow flurries the airport had reopened and flights were slowly resuming.

The weather has also put paid to much of my sporting activities recently. Out of 5 jobs to be shot since New Years day, 4 of them have been cancelled, including both Carling Cup semi final first legs (between Blackburn and Aston Villa, and Manchester City v Manchester United). The fixtures lists will becoming somewhat congested over the next 4 weeks…

James from YNMS rang to say that Manchester Airport had buckled under the pressure of the weather and had closed. By the time I’d gotten there, it’d reopened! The weather was coming in waves, and at least two other heavy snow showers passed whilst I was there. First up was a shot across the airfield, so I went to the south side, however the weather made visibility very poor and I couldn’t see anything! I shot back round to the opposite side and managed to get the above shot of an airport worker de-icing an American Airlines flight on the apron.

Inside the terminals was surprisingly quiet, and passengers were moving through quickly. There were only two cancellations in the time the airport had closed, and I suspect they’d have changed to delayed before long!

A cold, late November evening didn’t stop the stars coming out for the United for Unicef charity dinner hosted by Manchester United at Old Trafford. Many of the first team turned up, including Van der Saar, Giggs and Evra.

Amongst the raft of footballers were a number of TV celebs including the previously shot Ralf Little. We’ll be on first name terms soon.

Shot for Yorkshire News and Media Service.