I have had the luck to see a few really good sunrises and sunsets in the past week or two as the seasons really change from summer into autumn. Usually when I see a good sunset I do not have my camera on me, but I had a lucky 36 hour period when I saw two good sunsets and a decent sunrise as well.
Sunset over Walthamstow.
Sunrise over Canary Wharf (Yes I know, I actually caught a sunrise !)
Sunset over the Thames and Cannon Street rail bridge.
Sunday 06 October 2013 – Cambridge.
I cannot believe it has been four weeks since I was in Edinburgh, and almost five months since I arrived back in London. Time has just flown by and I have just realised this is the longest I have been in one place for almost two years. I may as well mention that I am still looking for a job, and starting to get a wee bit disheartened by the whole process now.
On a more positive note one year ago I was just starting off on my travels on the good truck Malakai in Africa. My trip was comprised of three separate tours back to back to form one long ten or so week journey that was one of the real highlights of the past two years. The first leg of the trip was from Cape Town in South Africa to Livingston in Zambia, via Namibia and Botswana and for many reasons it was the best part of the trip. One of those reasons was the people on the truck, the crew were awesome and the other guests fantastic, we just all seemed to gel. A real surprise that after three weeks of heat and dust and living in tents and the back of a truck we were all still friends.
This weekend we had a small reunion in Cambridge. Canadians Dave and Nancy were travelling again and were passing through the UK and with Sanjeev and Vaishali recently moving to Cambridge from Boston it seemed like a good opportunity to get together. El and I went up for the weekend.
We met Dave and Nancy at Kings Cross Station and we all caught the fast train up to Cambridge, where we parted ways with El and I taking a room in the Lensfield Hotel and Dave and Nancy heading of to Sanjeev and Vaishali’s. It was such a ‘typical’ English hotel – kind of old fashioned, slightly creaky floors, narrow hall ways and a bathroom that sort of worked OK, if you don’t mind the shower spraying all over the floor. It was perfectly fine though!
It was the weekend when a lot of the students were returning to university, so as well as there being a lot of people around a lot of the colleges were closed to the public which was a real shame. We were passing Pembroke College just as a small visitors window was open so we nipped in for a look around. Pembroke is one of the smaller, lesser known colleges – and while it is not as lavish as some, it was still very nice in the grounds.
We crossed the River Cam and walked along the backs of the colleges before crossing back over and watching the punts for a bit, not as crazy as Oxford !
We wandered around Cambridge for a while before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
We took a taxi to Sanjeev and Vaishali’s house and had a very enjoyable evening with them and Nancy and David. We were also lucky to have a quick Skype call with another fellow traveler, William who lives in Brisbane, where it was very early in the morning.
After a food English breakfast on Sunday we checked out of the hotel and went walking again, the intention was to visit Kings Chapel but it was closed for the day so I had to contend with another photo from the outside 🙂
We walked around again looking some coffee that wasn’t in a chain restaurant but didn’t seem to find many options (A business opportunity ?) so ended up getting a take away from a chain and sitting in All Saints Garden for a while. A nice spot to relax and watch the world go by.
We had lunch arranged at a pub just over the river from Midsummer Common so we took a slow walk along the tow path under some pretty glorious sunshine.
The six of us from last night were joined at lunch by Carol and Jackie who had driven in for the meal. El and I had a train to catch back to London so we were unable to stay for long at lunch, but it was lovely to see them again and much reminiscing was had. We drank a toasts to those who could not make it and a special one to Bill who had a stroke a couple of months after returning to New York – we all wish you the best Bill.
It was a great weekend, so nice to be able to see and keep in contact with such a great bunch of people. I look forward to another one.
Saturday 21 September 2013
I have almost caught up with photo reviewing and blog writing, though it seems as if I am doing things faster than I get the time to document them. Given that I seem to have all day most days to do this you would think I should be bang up to date!
There has been yet another Clash greatest hits album released recently and in conjunction with that there was a small Clash exhibition in a shop in Soho. There were a couple of floors of memorabilia from the members themselves and it was really cool.
Some of the original hand decorated clothing from the early photo shoots including the White Riot overalls of Mick Jones.
There were also a few guitars
And most importantly THE bass – from one of the best live show photos ever taken. I was so surprised to see it was never repaired.
It was a really cool exhibition – and chock full of middle aged men and women oohing and aahing over the exhibits. I am so glad we went and oohed and aahed ourselves.
Friday 20 September 2013 – London.
I am finally catching up with editing a few photos that I have taken over the past few weeks. Seeing as I am still not working I cannot believe I just do not seem to have time to do these things. Though I must say I am glad I do keep myself busy – and before anyone asks, no! I not become addicted to day time soaps. In fact I barely watch any TV at all, accept the weekend now that it is football season.
A few weeks ago I signed up to a bunch of photography based MeetUp groups in an effort to get back out taking photos again and maybe getting a bit further afield than I am. Like a lot of things recently circumstances seem to conspire against me and the only shoots I am interested in are on weekends I am already doing something else, for instance this weekend is the international Kelby photo walk and I am meeting friends in Cambridge – something I am very much looking forward to!
I did, however, meet a bunch of other photographers one evening outside the Houses of Parliament and we did a photo walk up the Thames. It was a lot of fun – I had forgotten a lot of tricks with night photography so it was a relearning experience as well.
I took this one on the way.
We started on Westminster Bridge and took photos both East and West.
And then moved a bit further down the bridge. I wasa going for quite long exposures to capture some of the movement in and on the river.
We walked along the Southbank, stopping here and there to grap a few shots, as it was early evening there were a lot of people about. I tried to get some good ghost motion shots of people but none of them really turned out how I wanted.
Then it was up to Waterloo Bridge to shoot the brightly lit National Theatre – a horrendously ugly concrete block edifice turned colourful and bright by night. I was looking for buses…
We then caught one of the buses to the Tate Modern end of Bankside and walked down on to the side of the Thames, the tide was out so we could get down quite low which was very cool.
And yes, I know the horizon is not straight…. I am always happy to break rules for effect.
It was a great four hours out and about, I had a lot of fun shooting and chatting but the main thing I learned is that is perfectly safe to be doing solo night shoots on the Thames, something that had prevented me from going and doing it myself.
Where is Phil now? 