Twelve 2015 photos

I spent a lot of today doing an elaborate Samizdata posting with twelve photos in it, and now I am doing the same here. Most of these ones are just of the I Just Like It sort.

Whether I have the time and energy left after posting the photos to say something about them remains to be seen. Anyway, here they are, one for each month, in chronological order:

Okay, let’s see if I can rattle through what they are, insofar as it isn’t obvious.

1.1 was taken outside Quimper (which is in Brittany) Cathedral, where they were selling that sugary stuff on a stick called I can’t remember what. I stalked the guy for ever, until he finally obliged by sticking his sugary stuff on a stick in front of his face. Never clocked me, I swear. Although, when others stalk me when I’m photoing, I never notice them.

1.2 is the amazing coffee making equipment owned by the friend also featured in these earlier pictures.

1.3 is the men’s toilet in the Lord Palmerston pub, near Suicide Bridge, photoed soon after I took those.

2.1 explains itself. 2.2 is Anna Pavlova, reflected in the House of Fraser building in Victoria. 2.3 was taken on the Millenium Footbridge.

3.1 is 240 Blackfriars. What I like about it is that in some photos, such as this one, it looks like a 2D collage stuck onto the sky, instead of a 3D building in front of the sky.

3.2 is the new entrance to Tottenham Court Road tube/crossrail station, outside Centre Point, seen from further up Tottenham Court Road.

3.3 is the Big Olympic Thing, seen from Canning Town railway and tube station. A tiny bit of it, anyway. To me, unmistakable. To you, maybe an explanation needed.

4.1 shows me photoing shop trivia, in this case a spread of magazines dominated by the scarily intense face of one of British TV’s great Tragedy Queens, the actress Nicola Walker. I first clocked her when she was in Spooks. Now she’s in everything.

4.2 and 4.3 are both film crew snaps. 4.2 features a London Underground Big Cheese, who is a bit put out to find himself being photoed by the wrong person instead of by his own tame film crew. He was drawing a lot of attention to himself, so I reckon him fair blogging game. 4.3 is another film crew, in Victoria Street, just loving the attention, who will be ecstatic when they hear about how they have hit the big time. I like how there’s a movie advert on a bus right behind them.

There, that wasn’t so bad. Although there are probably several mistakes that I am, as of the smallest hours of 2016, too tired to be fixing.

Happy New Year to all who get to read this.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Food memories from the outer suburbs

Photographs are, as all the world has recently been learning, except those whose business – paid or unpaid – it is to complain about what all the world has recently been learning, a wonderful aid to memory.

And many of the happiest memories of our extraordinarily comfortable and frequently very happy times involve food. So – and the complainers complain about it with a venom they seem to reserve only for this, and for selfies – people now like to photo food. Food that they have themselves prepared. And food that others have prepared for them.

And I like to photo them photoing the food. This also makes happy memories.

Man prepares meat: Man photos meat: Man prepares salad: Man photos salad:

These are happy memories from last August. Visit to friends in the outer suburbs.

The outer suburbs? What do they look like? Well, one of the things they look like (horizontalisation opportunity) is this:

That’s the large patch of grass, beyond the back wall of their back garden. And sadly, although those things in the distance do vaguely resemble Big Things, they are actually rather smaller trees.

We are beyond the “Green Belt”. The above photo, especially if clicked on, offers a glimpse of what the Green Belt might usefully be turned into, instead of it remaining for ever the wasteland of pointless open space that it is now. It would need livening up a bit. A bit of open-caste mining, or a temporary phase as a juvenile race track? Then let nature take its course, and you’ll have a lovely place. Apparently some industrial type activity (gravel?) is about to happen in that particular stretch of grass. That will stir up some interesting nature, when the industrialising is done.

Finally, this being Friday, here is a visitor to our jollifications who dropped by that afternoon:

Like many cats in places like this, this cat seems to have a basic home of basic benefactors, and daily rounds to visit other potential and not-so-basic benefactors. This visitor acquired no happy food memories with his/her visit, on the day I photoed him/her. Not that day.

But I have plenty. Without my camera, these memories would soon have gone.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Pavlova reflected in double glazing

Or so I assume. I can’t think what else might have created this effect:

Yes, it’s quota photo time, and that Pavlova statue on top of the Victoria Palace Theatre never fails to charm.

I took lots of similarly double glazed photos of Pavlova at the time I took this one, this one being my favourite.

Previous, quite recent, Pavlova statue pictures can be seen here, here, and here.

A new category is long overdue, but as of now I’m off to bed.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

More Big Olympic Thing photos

Yesterday morning from first thing to about midday, I had a nosebleed, caused by my lurgy, a lurgy which is lasting for ever. During this lurgy, I have had several nosebleeds (having never had a nosebleed in my life before), yesterday’s being by far the worst, and it cannot be coincidence.

Since then, I have been recovering my wits, such as they are, and am accordingly now in quota photo mode. And here are today’s quota photos, all of them of the Big Olympic Thing, designed by the man who also did the Chicago Bean, Anish Kapoor:

The photo on the left was taken in March 2012, from the Victoria Docks area, looking north, and the one of the right was taken looking south from Walthamstow. The one on the right (with all its excellent roof clutter in the foreground) being an example of a common thing at this blog, namely a good photograph, taken badly. (The one on the left, though I say it myself, is a really quite good photograph, taken really quite well.)

Trouble is, whenever I do one of these postings about some Thing, which I have a nice photo of to show you, I then go trawling through the archives looking for more photos of the same Thing. Here are two more pictures of this Big Olympic Thing, this time with foliage in the foreground:

The one on the left of those two, behind the trees was taken from Stave Hill, looking east (guess). And the one on the right was taken from the big road just this side of the Victoria Docks. These two photos were (left) taken in August of last year, and (right) in 2012 (about week after the sunset photo above).

The most recent of these four photos, the only one taken with my latest and undoubtedly my best camera, is by far the worst, technically. This is because, for that photo to work, the light had to be very good, but it was not. A less good camera with perfect light trumps a better camera with poor light, for me, usually, given the sort of outdoorsy, long-distancey photos that I generally like to take. I’m hoping my lurgy goes away soon enough for me to take advantage of this summer, and all its light.

As you can surely tell, I consider the Big Olympic Thing to be a fine contribution to London. It is not beautiful, exactly, but it is extremely recognisable. Every time I happen to see it in the distance, I immediately know what it is, and it lifts my spirits.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Knackered

I’m now knackered. For reasons too complicated for me to explain in my present knackered state, I didn’t get as much sleep last night as I would have liked. And then today I went on a photo-trek with Goddaughter 1. This was great, and I am entirely glad that I did this, but about two thirds of the way through these photo-treks I typically arrive at a state of knackeredness, and so it was today. Mostly it’s the feet. They ache. But, sitting down and resting only makes it worse when I try to resume.

We both took lots of photos, many of the best ones that I took being after I had become knackered, as also tends to be the rule with these photo-treks, hence my determination, every time, to keep trekking after becoming knackered. This is often because at the end of the trek there is a destination which keeps us going, and which is really good. This time, that destination, it gradually became clear, was Alexandra Palace. And Alexandra Palace is a great place from which to photo London and its Big Things, especially if the light is as good as it was today. The light at the end of the day is often the best, which is another reason to keep going, even if you become knackered before the day ends. So I kept going, and so, a great day.

But a knackering day, and I am now off to bed. I can, or so I hope, write when knackered. But working with my primitive little laptop, I now find it impossible to contrive any links or post any photos, So no links. No photos.

No photos also because, although it was a great day, I don’t know if I took any great (by my undemanding standards) photos. I have looked at them, once, but am now too caught up in what I was trying to photo and am not yet able to be objective about what I did photo and to pick out any truly good ones.

Good night.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The Shard was looking very special today

This afternoon I went walkabout, with quite another object in mind than the Shard. But, the Shard was looking peculiarly beautiful this evening, at any rate from where I was standing, on the Millennium Bridge.

At present I am not seeing this picture nearly as clearly as you probably are, because my proper computer (Godot) is ill and my laptop (Dawkins Judas) only has a very small and inadequate screen.

What I hope you are seeing is the sky looking very earthly, but the Shard looking almost heavenly. The sky looks rough and the Shard looks smooth. The sky looks matt and the Shard looks gloss. Sky behind the Shard is dark, the Sky reflected off the Shard is light. London is dim, but the Shard is bright.

Renzo Piano, who designed this wondrous Thing, saw all this coming. He knew that the Shard would reflect in a quite different way to a merely vertical Thing, and today this effect was to be seen at its very best. I can only hope that my photo gives at least a clue of what was going on.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Photoing old Dinky Toys in Englefield Green

Today there was a big old Micklethwait family get-together at the ancestral home in Englefield Green, Surrey. Me, two brothers, a nephew and a niece plus partners, another niece, plus two little kids. I took photos of course, and I wasn’t the only one doing that.

I prefer not to show you pictures of my relatives, but I’m sure that nobody will mind me showing you these snaps:

Those are Dinky Toys, in really quite good condition, dating from the 1950s. I can even remember a couple of the names. The red van (which was my brother’s, not mine) was “Mersey Tunnel”, because it is a Mersey Tunnel police van. And the white car with green on it is a Singer Gazelle. Ah, Singer. Those were the days when Britain contained about a dozen distinct car-makers, with distinct names like Singer.

All these toys had already been extracted from all the other goods and chattels in the house and given to N and NP’s two little kids, before I arrived. Theoretically, three of these four antiquities were mine, or they were mine sixty years ago, but the kids seemed to like them and I was glad for these toys to be passed on. Such things are only worth proper money if the boxes have been kept, and of course they hadn’t been. And although these Dinky Toys, especially the two cars, are in really quite good condition, really quite good condition is not nearly as good as mint condition, moneywise. So, yes kids, you’re very welcome.

But one favour I did ask. Before you take them off to your home, let me photo them, just to remember them. Okay? Okay. So I perched them on my knees and took the shots.

One of the many good things about digital photography is that with it you can store fun memories in two virtual dimensions, rather than in three actual dimensions.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Two more Pavlova pictures

Indeed. On the same day, March 10th of this year, that I took this, I also took these:

That concrete building already looks very different, and the numerous photo opportunities supplied by trees in March are all ruined by leaves. I hate leaves. All over London there are great views, totally ruined by leaves.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Ballerina and crane

Yes, again, but I do love her, especially now, when she presides over all that noisily aggressive building work all around her at the top end of Victoria Street:

Nothing says old school femininity like a ballerina, and nothing says old school masculinity like one of those extendable (but not at the time fully extended) temporary cranes. Men are here. But if here is the top end of Victoria Street, so too is the ultimate lady.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

London is getting more colourful

Here is a piece I did here about how Modernism got associated with whiteness. And for most would-be Modernists, Modernism still is white. But, here is another piece I did about coloured Modernism, in the form of Renzo Piano’s very colourful buildings near Centre Point. (Renzo Piano also designed the Shard.)

Here is another photo I took of these, I think, delightful edifices:

And here is a faked-up picture I came across not long ago, which suggests that Piano’s colourfulness may have struck a chord with other architects:

That picture adorns a report about the footbridge that you can see on the right of the picture, the very same one that I saw being installed last August. But I think you will agree that the towers on the Island there are a definite echo of that Pianistic colour.

The great thing about coloured architecture is that you can build the most severely functional lumps, and only worry about brightening them up afterwards. Form can colour function, and then colour can cover up the form and make it fun.

But it need not stop at just having one plain colour. Soon the artists will join in, and there will be giant murals.

If I had to place a bet about how different London will look from now in thirty year’s time, this would be the change I would bet on. Both new buildings and dull old ones will be much more brightly coloured.

I’m guessing that outdoor paint is a technology that has had a lot of work done on it in recent years, and that such work continues.

I will be interested to see if those Piano office blocks become faded, or if the colour stays bright for a decent time.

Interestingly Le Corbusier was a great one for colour being slapped on Modern buildings, but the notion never really caught on. Or rather, it is only now catching on.

As is illustrated in this posting at Material Girls. Where the point is also made that another huge influence on the monochrome association with Modernism was early and black-and-white photography. Even colourfully painted buildings didn’t look coloured in the photos. (One might add that newspapers and magazines only burst into colour after WW2, in the case of newspapers only in the 1960s. Until then, all newspaper and magazine photos were printed in black and white. So even if Modernism was done in colour, its influence spread in black and white.)

Now, colourful buildings tend to look colourful, both for real, and in the photos.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog