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Fish in Orchard Place

I couldn’t decide which of these two fish photos was the best, so here are both of them. The photo on the right is better of the fish itself. The photo on the left shows more of the rather strange setting. Click on either, or both, or neither, to get the bigger pictures:

I encountered this fish in Orchard Place, last Sunday. Orchard Place is the road you need to walk along if you want to check out Container City, which is what I was doing at the time. To find Orchard Place on google maps, and to satisfy yourself that we are both talking about the same Place, got to Canning Town tube station and go south.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Window cleaning cranes in Victoria

I find myself becoming ever more entertained by those cranes at the top of buildings, for cleaning windows. The ones that look like this:

Is it a crane? Is it roof clutter? It’s both!

The above photo was taken in March. And then, in April, this month, I took this next photo, because, although not by itself very significant, it really adds to the story being told above:

I did a bit of cropping on both these, to make them more identical, in all but the essential difference they illustrate.

For you see (which you now do), this particular window cleaning crane has the trick of disappearing into the (very visible) roof of its building like it’s not even there.

One moment: roof clutter, of the most obtrusive sort. Next thing you know: roof clutter gone.

There is another such window cleaning crane, very near to the above window cleaning crane, in fact just across the road from it, on the big ugly building with the curved roof, from which a window cleaning crane with a curved bit of roof on it occasionally emerges. And in February, I chanced upon this window cleaning crane in action:

From form emerges function. Function functions. Then function disappears back into form, like nothing had happened.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Three Walkie Talkie photos

First, when they were still building it, as viewed from the south side of the river:

And now, from a little spot in the City called Bunhill Fields, which is a graveyard, through some leafless trees:

The first photo was photoed five years ago last Thursday, and the second was photoed ten days ago.

The more I see of this Big Thing, the more I like it. And I am hearing others say that they like it too.

While I’m about it, one of its admirers singled out what happens at the top of the Walkie Talkie. This looks like this:

I took that in January of last year.

Misty (or polluted) at Canning Town

Today, in the cloudless weather ordained by our omniscient short-term weather forecasters, I took a quite long walk beside the River Lea, out east. The clocks having just gone forward, there was suddenly a decent amount of daylight, so I took my time and just carried on walking, and now I am knackered. So, it’s quota photo time:

That was taken at Canning Town, where I was switching from the Underground to the Overground. It’s one of those I Just Like It photos, as in: I hope you like it too, but I realise it isn’t that remarkable.

There were no clouds in the sky, but there was something in the air. Mist? Pollution? Whatever it was, it had the effect of turning all distant objects from their usual appearance to a flatly uniform grey, like I’d pushed some kind of Photoshop button. Those are the Docklands Towers in the distance, looking flatly and uniformly grey. That one pointy tower makes the whole cluster recognisable. Increasingly, and as I think I am starting to say quite often here, I find myself valuing recognisability over mere beauty.

I don’t usually like it when street lamps get in the way. (Street lamps in London always get in the way, of every picture I ever try to take, or so it sometimes seems.) But I rather like the way these ones have come out. The nearer one frames the view rather nicely, and the more distant one poses in a dignified way, in a way that fits in well with the rectangular shapes in the gas-holder.

I totally trust the weather forecasters. I left my umbrella behind, and wore fewer clothes than ever before this year. And it worked. No rain, no cold. And not quite so knackered from carrying unnecessary garments. But still knackered. So that is all, and I wish you all a very good night.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The outdoor map next to the Twelvetrees Crescent Bridge over the River Lea

I like London’s (England’s?) long, thin, very vertical, outdoor maps. Whenever I am out and about photoing, I photo them:

There’s nothing like a photo of a map with “You are here” on it, to tell you exactly where you were. That’s where I was, early on, on the day I later took these pictures.

Seriously, it is often quite difficult to work out exactly where I was when I look through the products of one of my photographic perambulations. This kind of snap turns it from difficult to obvious.

Especially if you can actually see the bit where it says “You are here”, like this:

I’ve recently been on several expeditions to this intriguing part of London, with its convoluted waterways. Maps are nice, but there’s no substitute for actually being there. With a camera.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Shopping Trolley Spiral beside the River Lea

Yesterday I told you about a photo I took on January 20th of this year. Earlier that day I had journeyed to Bromley-By-Bow tube station, then walked south along the River Lea, and ended my wanderings at Star Lane Station. It was a great day for photoing, and I especially enjoyed photoing this witty sculpture:

But who did it? This evening I realised that I seemed to recall Mick Hartley having something to say about this, and so it proved.

It’s by Abigail Fallis, and it is called DNA DL90. Well, I say that’s what it’s called. That’s what Abigail Fallis called it, but I bet nobody else calls it that. I bet what most people call it is more like: Shopping Trolley Spiral. I’m guessing further that Abigail Fallis regards her sculpture as some kind of critique of late capitalist consumerism. But such ArtGrumbling need not stop the rest of us thoroughly enjoying the thing, and also continuing to relish our trips to the supermarket, there to sample the delights of early capitalism. Because you see, Abigail, capitalism is just getting started.

Yes. I was right. Says Hartley:

It is, says Fallis, a symbol of modern society’s consumer culture, which has now become entwined in our genetic make-up. They can’t help themselves, can they, these artists?

The usual bitch about Artsists is that they are predictable, and indeed they are. But this was something else again. I literally predicted this, before I read it. How predictable is that? Very, very.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Quota coloured lights outside the Royal Festival Hall

I did my talk, and it was well received, but now I am too knackered to offer anything here but a quota photo:

Photoed by me on January 10th 2007, in other words ten years minus four days ago.

I like the contrast between the coloured lights, done with plastic bottles, and the monochrome surroundings. I remember those lights, and photoing them.

My camera back then wasn’t that good in low light. But it did okay for these photos, from which I picked the one I liked best.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Quota construction

I’ve spent my day pondering my talk on Friday evening, so here, it’s quota photo time, four of them, taken last October:

What we are looking at is the building activity now happening between Waterloo Station and the river, photoed from the Waterloo Station side.

I fear that this buildings are going to have looked prettier when being built than when built.

Hope I’m wrong.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Up on my roof – at Samizdata and here

I just did a multi-photo posting at Samizdata, with have a dozen photos all taken from my roof, which ended with a picture of the Houses of Parliament by day, and then two shots of the same thing last night, with added fireworks. Happy New Year, and all that. Again.

Here is another fireworks shot that I took last night that I particularly like:

I like how each little sub-firework has only just got started and is a small bobble rather than shooting madly off in all directions, as you more usually see.

Another thing I can see from my roof is the Shard’s eccentric top:

That was taken earlier in the year. The Shard also was looking a bit dramatic last night, by which time the cranes that had been operating in the foreground of this particular view had departed:

My usual excuse for my bad good photos is that a Real Photographer can go to the exact same spot and take the same shots properly. But if any Real Photographers buzz on our front door and expect to get out onto our roof, well, that might not work. Personally, I would allow it, on condition that I was permitted by the RP to photo him or her taking his or her photos.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

240 Blackfriars behind some reinforced concrete that is being demolished

I love the various visual effects you sometimes get when a piece of reinforced concrete is being destroyed and when it puts up a fight. I can’t say that it always does this, because you wouldn’t see anything when it is routed into oblivion in the space of a few hours, would you? But when it does fight for its life, it can be quite a sight. These effects are particularly worthy of being photographically immortalised because however long the fight lasts, it will still end, and pretty soon.

And, I find that the more I see of 240 Blackfriars, from near and from far, the more I like it.

So, here is today’s photo, taken today:

I took this while on my way from Waterloo to Tate Modern and its Extension viewing gallery, which I am visiting a lot these days, before the Let Them Get Net Curtains row causes the place to be closed or at least severely curtailed.

240 Blackfriars is the work, I have just learned, of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, whom I have now started to learn more about. I never heard of them until now.

Preliminary findings: I think that 240 Blackfriars will probably turn out to be my favourite of their buildings so far. And: they make a lot of use of colour, which I favour, but which can often look very tacky and Seventies-ish if you don’t do it right.