On Friday I met up with M in
London and we embarked on an exhausting tour that took us from Lewisham through to Greenwich, then Docklands, across to the South Bank and on to Covent Garden.
It was late morning by the time we met in
Lewisham and thankfully the cloud and rain of earlier had given way to bright sunshine. I ditched my rain jacket and we began walking through pretty leafy streets and through
Blackheath, a surprising open space that didn't seem to belong in a vast city like London. We reached the entrance to
Greenwich Park and were met
by a rather tame squirrel who wandered off as soon as it realised we had nothing to offer. At the
Royal Greenwich Observatory the park slopes down to the river, offering fantastic views across the Thames to the
Isle of Dogs and the perpetual building site that is
Docklands. U
nfortunately for M, this meant I became glued to my camera as I photographed the view which included the Millennium Dome, now renamed and rethemed as the
O2 Arena. We continued through the park and hoardes of visiting schoolchildren past the
National Maritime Museum to the tranquility of the
Old Royal Naval College where we sat for a while eating sandwiches.
From there it was a short walk to the burnt-out remains of the
Cutty Sark, the world-famous clipper that was devastated by fire last month. After a brief walk around
Greenwich we caught the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to
Canary Wharf. When I was much younger and interested in architecture it was the brave new worlds of Dockland
s and Milton Keynes that really fascinated me. I first visited this part of London in the early nineties, soon after Canary Wharf (
or One Canada Square
as it's now called) was completed to become the tallest habitable building in the UK. Back then the DLR only stretched from Stratford in east London down to Island Gardens, weaving its way through an army of cranes and a mass of building sites ready for new offices and apartments. In the years since, the
Isle of Dogs has developed into a bustling financial zone full of suited workers drinking outside bars or eating Waitrose sandwiches on the green below the soaring glass and steel skyscrapers.
Canary Wharf Station was pretty much a platform when I was last there but now has it's own shopping mall and a very impressive glass dome entrance.
We caught the tube to Waterloo and headed for the
South Bank. As M had been here the day before she knew about the
Antony Gormley figures perched on the tops of various London buildings as part of the
Event Horizon exhibition. Look up and you're bound to see one: there are 31 sculptures watching over the city in either a Big Brother or a comforting way, depending on your point of view.
By now it was mid-afternoon and very warm. Ice-creams helped us cool down but even better was getting drenched by standing in a water sculpture outside the Royal Festival Hall called
Appearing Rooms. Walls of water would spring up creating four 'rooms' and then subside for a few seconds, allowing the public to become part of the art work by jumping on and standing between the fountains, trapping them inside when the water sprouted again. As we watched others become 'trapped', it looked as though they were staying surprisingly dry. But as we discovered, that wasn't exactly the case...
After crossing the Jubilee Bridge we walked through
Covent Garden to reacquaint ourselves with Japanese lifestyle store
MUJI - an essential visit on any trip to London. Then we dropped into the
Photographers' Gallery where there was a fascinating exhibition of ephemera submitted to Chicago's
Found and
Dirty Found magazines.
By late afternoon we headed back to the green beside the
London Eye for a deserved rest. It looked as though somebody had hoisted their own home-made flag up the pole on the South Bank but, as M discovered, it's an artwork by
Tracy Emin. The whole area was heaving by now, thanks to the beautiful weather and the start of a weekend's celebrations to mark the reopening of the restored
Royal Festival Hall.
Jarvis Cocker made a brief appearance to introduce some music but we couldn't see him, only hear his voice over the PA.
Soon afterwards, with the sun beginning to set, and the both of us feeling tired and exhausted, we called time on our tour of London and set off on our train journeys home...
Brighton has long attracted graffiti artists from across Europe but the latest international artistic addition to our streets has come all the way from Brazil. Artists Tinho, Pato and Flip are in town for an exhibition of their work at the o contemporary gallery but they took time out to redecorate the sides of a couple of buildings in Regent Street.
This is the pink hill in the eastern suburbs of Eastbourne where I grew up. Back when I was around 8 years old we had great fun sitting on wooden or plastic skateboards to race down here. It was called the pink hill because of the pinky/red tarmac used to create the pathway (now it's just a bland grey). In those days, back in the late 1970s, we sat or kneeled on our skateboards and pretty much just used to ride down hills like this one. Except, as a youngster, it was a hill. Funny how now it just looks like a gentle slope...
At the weekend I dug my old Praktica BCA SLR camera out. The case was a bit dusty and there were a few cobwebs inside but the camera itself was in great condition so I think I'll shoot some film in the near future.
Forget Google Maps. My brother sent me a link to Microsoft's Virtual Earth. Here you get a bird's eye view: rather than looking straight down you have a choice of viewing any street or building from 4 directions. Not only that, the views really are up-close-and-personal: when I clicked on the link I was taken to an image of our parents' house... and a frighteningly clear view of my mum cleaning out her car...
Still working on the technique. I've added a new tilt-shift set to Flickr to chart my progress...
I just spent a teabreak creating my own tilt-shift photography.
Sunday morning saw me heading out into the sunshine to grab some circular-photo action with my new Lomo Fisheye camera (thanks again J!). I easily clicked my way along the seafront and through 36 exposures so I took the film up to Jessops to get it developed before returning home. The photos came out great, except... on closer inspection I noticed a smudge on almost every photo. That's the trouble with Lomography, where you're not encouraged to use the viewfinder (not that the Fisheye has one that's much use anyway). So... definitely a lesson for the future: keep checking that lens for dirt and dust...
The first camera I owned was given to me by my grandad when I was about 10 or so. I carried it around Chessington Zoo and took photos of the animals, but the only photograph I can remember today was of a depressed-looking brown bear imprisoned in a concrete enclosure. Perhaps it was this constant grim reminder of that poor animal's existence that I didn't really get into photography immediately: a camera was just something I took with me on holiday. In subsequent years I owned other automatic cameras and took plenty of dodgy photos. And in each batch that would arrive in the post from the developer, there would always be two or three apallingly bad snaps taken in a rush at home just to use up the film.
On Friday I met up with M in London and we embarked on an exhausting tour that took us from Lewisham through to Greenwich, then Docklands, across to the South Bank and on to Covent Garden.
by a rather tame squirrel who wandered off as soon as it realised we had nothing to offer. At the Royal Greenwich Observatory the park slopes down to the river, offering fantastic views across the Thames to the Isle of Dogs and the perpetual building site that is Docklands. U
nfortunately for M, this meant I became glued to my camera as I photographed the view which included the Millennium Dome, now renamed and rethemed as the O2 Arena. We continued through the park and hoardes of visiting schoolchildren past the National Maritime Museum to the tranquility of the Old Royal Naval College where we sat for a while eating sandwiches.
s and Milton Keynes that really fascinated me. I first visited this part of London in the early nineties, soon after Canary Wharf (or One Canada Square as it's now called) was completed to become the tallest habitable building in the UK. Back then the DLR only stretched from Stratford in east London down to Island Gardens, weaving its way through an army of cranes and a mass of building sites ready for new offices and apartments. In the years since, the Isle of Dogs has developed into a bustling financial zone full of suited workers drinking outside bars or eating Waitrose sandwiches on the green below the soaring glass and steel skyscrapers. Canary Wharf Station was pretty much a platform when I was last there but now has it's own shopping mall and a very impressive glass dome entrance.
We caught the tube to Waterloo and headed for the South Bank. As M had been here the day before she knew about the Antony Gormley figures perched on the tops of various London buildings as part of the Event Horizon exhibition. Look up and you're bound to see one: there are 31 sculptures watching over the city in either a Big Brother or a comforting way, depending on your point of view.
By now it was mid-afternoon and very warm. Ice-creams helped us cool down but even better was getting drenched by standing in a water sculpture outside the Royal Festival Hall called Appearing Rooms. Walls of water would spring up creating four 'rooms' and then subside for a few seconds, allowing the public to become part of the art work by jumping on and standing between the fountains, trapping them inside when the water sprouted again. As we watched others become 'trapped', it looked as though they were staying surprisingly dry. But as we discovered, that wasn't exactly the case...
By late afternoon we headed back to the green beside the London Eye for a deserved rest. It looked as though somebody had hoisted their own home-made flag up the pole on the South Bank but, as M discovered, it's an artwork by Tracy Emin. The whole area was heaving by now, thanks to the beautiful weather and the start of a weekend's celebrations to mark the reopening of the restored Royal Festival Hall. Jarvis Cocker made a brief appearance to introduce some music but we couldn't see him, only hear his voice over the PA.
Here's an apple pie brought over from Japan.
While we were clearing out the garden shed we came across this slimy visitor, a Common Frog.
TV series Lost comes to an end for our 5-strong network of fans today as we get together for the first time to watch the last episode of season three. Since this run began in October we've dealt with potential disaster (Virgin lost the right to screen the series in a fall-out with Sky - luckily my mum stepped in to record it each week), an almost-unbearable several month hiatus mid-series and more twists & turns to throw a stick at. But even worse has been the fear that best- character-by-a-mile, John Locke, will die from the shotgun wound to the stomach he suffered a couple of weeks back. I've been sitting on the DVD since it arrived in the post on Friday but, with just hours to go now until we meet up, I'm finding it very difficult to resist the urge to shove it in the player, hit the remote and rely on my acting skills to conjure up a bit of fake surprise during the repeat performance later on...
