Used as the entrance to Slade Prison in the title sequence of the 1970s sitcom Porridge with Ronnie Barker. Formerly the gatehouse to St Albans Prison, the building is now used as offices. The interior communal areas of the prison were constructed inside a huge metal tank at Elstree Studios, previously used for underwater filming.

“They call it a town where time stands still. Maybe it is because the clocks here don’t measure time - they measure radiation levels.”

Fascinating account of a journey by Elena Filatova to the Chernobyl reactor with many chilling photos here. More on the Chernobyl disaster here.

Some shots from a recent trip to Weymouth & Portland - click for larger versions. More here.

If you don’t have any decent graphics software, you can use this nice online tool to give your photos rounded edges. You can adjust the curve radius and background colour. www.roundpic.com.

Some shots from a recent trip to Bexhill and the De La Warr Pavilion - click for larger versions. More here.

On Microsoft’s research site you can view photos several gigapixels in size, allowing incredible zoom levels (browser plugin required). Another high definition example here (this one uses Flash).

Impressive collection of computer desktop wallpaper images from photographer Mike Swanson here.

Found this little chap sitting on the window sill. I think it’s a Zebra (jumping) spider, showing two of his four pairs of eyes (and you can just see another one toward the back on the right). It was only around 4mm across.

This famous photograph was taken by Stuart Franklin during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. The anonymous man stood in front of the advancing tanks bringing them to a halt. He then climbed onto the lead tank and spoke to the driver, before crowd members pulled him away. There are conflicting stories of the mans identity and his fate after the incident which was also caught on film. Franklin won a World Press Award for the photograph.

Photograph by Stuart Franklin

Photography hobbyist Hamad Darwish was commissioned by Microsoft to take desktop wallpaper photos for inclusion with Windows Vista. Here you can download a complete set including those that didn’t make it into the operating system. The “Aurora” image chosen as the default was created by Vista graphics designer Jenny Lam. Article here.

The Windows XP default wallpaper “Bliss” showing green hillside with blue sky and clouds was photographed by Charles O’Rear, contributor to National Geographic Magazine. The shot was taken at Napa Valley, California.

Photograph by Charles O’Rear