Cultural Attachment

So 2008: Liverpool's Capital of Culture year is over - although we don't hand over officially to Linz until January 10th - and the general view is that it was a positive thing. True, there were cock-ups in the years leading up to it - choosing an Australian co-ordinator who couldn't start straight away and then resigned, Ringo didn't make any new fans and the deprived areas of the city will not be transformed into idylls overnight - but it did provide a feelgood factor.

Highlights for me were the Macca concert and the giant spider of La Machine. It also provided dozens of photo opportunities. Whilst my efforts are amateurish, I did manage to get a few on the BBC site (see, I do my best for licence fee payers if not for professional photographers' careeers).

By far the most spectacular photos can be found on the photoblog of Pete Carr, Vanilla Days. The site has won an award for European Photoblog of the year. He may have great equipment (I'm jealous) but there is more to great photography than the kit. He manages to get to unique spots to give a different perspective on the city, and his use of HDR is outstanding. I'm not always a big fan of over-editing processes but these examples are stunning.