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.
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.
Sunday 11 August 2013 – Columbia Rd Market.
Sunday was another good walking day and as El had never walked the Lee Navigation tow path that I ran on Wednesday night we decided that today was a good day to do it. El also wanted to visit a market so we decided to add to the walk and start in Shoreditch and visit Columbia Rd flower market on the way.
We up and out fairly early and discovered that the train we were on was not stopping at Bethnal Green station as it cruised on through and kept going all the way to Liverpool St. This made for a slightly longer walk than planned, and I managed to resist any urges to disappear up side streets to snap any street art on the way.
Columbia Rd flower market is incredibly popular and gets really crowded, with both locals buyin flowers and plants and tourists there to see the flowers, stalls and shops and to listen to the rival stall holders with their Cockney accented voices calling “Come on love – 2 for a fiver, lovely peonies “. It is definitely worth experiencing.
Of course as this is the east end and in between Shoreditch and Hackney Rd, there is a wee bit of street art that is just unavoidable ! I did like this sign.
An Alo right next to the market.
After one of the best coffees I have had in London we started the walk up Hackney Rd to the Regents Canal towpath and on back to Walthamstow. Another lovely piece by C215 on Hackney Rd.
It was a long walk and we stopped off for a pint at one of the few canal side pubs on the way. We thought about lunch but food was really expensive, more so than in Highgate yesterday. I am sure the food was delicious, but 6:50 pounds for a burger in a pub on Lea Bridge Rd is a bit steep, even if it was riverside !
Getting up after the pint was a painful experience as both of us suffered from seized up knees and it took a wee while to loosen up again as we walked. Though we did stop for a pretty good roast lunch at The Chequers; a recently renovated pub in Walthamstow market. Apparently Reggie and Ronnie Cray hung out here while they were in hiding from the police back in the 60s.
It was another good, though tiring, day out, a four walk and a couple of pints with El. I definitely cannot complain at that.
Saturday 10 August 2013 – Ham and High.
The gorgeous weather from earlier in the week continued into the weekend, with mixed cloudy and clear skies and a nice early autumn cool temperature providing the perfect excuse to go outside and do stuff. We have had Highgate Cemetery on the list of things to do for ages and today was the day we finally went and did it.
We took the train to Gospel Oak station and walked up from there, the further north west we ventured from Gospel Oak the posher the surrounding houses became and we were soon walking through the small village near the cemetery entrance and I was eyeing up places to visit for lunch later on… It was all jolly nice as the English would say.
The entrance to the cemetery is up a surprisingly long hill, and I only mean this by London standards, definitely not Auckland standards ! London is just so damn flat any hill is exciting. I may have found a new place to go and run as I really do miss hills, especially a long slow climb. Yes, it is weird…
Highgate Cemetery has two sides, east and west wing, the west wing is only accessible via a 12 pound guided tour so we decided to skip that and just view the east wing which was 4 pound and had the Karl Marx grave – which was its key attraction I guess. I will do a visit to the west wing another day, maybe when it is covered in snow.
The cemetery was initially started in 1839 and expanded over to the east side in 1860. Unlike the majority of cemeteries that are religious based this was purely a commercial entity – and open to all. It was closed in the 1970s when it was no longer profitable and lay in decay for many for years. It is now run by a trust, hence the fee. It is still open for people to be buried there, but there is not much space so I imagine it is not easy. Though there are some well known people here there are also a lot of ‘new’ gravestones of names I do not recognise at all. Some of the more interesting new residents are;
The wonderful author Douglas Adam, who passed away so young in 2001.
And Malcolm McLaren.
The artist Patrick Caufield had the best modern gravestone I have seen.
As I mentioned earlier one of the big ‘attractions’ of Highgate is the grave site of Karl Marx, who has a large memorial on one of the big paths near the entrance.
This is actually a new plot for Karl as further into the cemetery there is an old grave stone and I do wonder why he was moved ? Perhaps to allow for some of his family to be interred with him ? I really hope it wasn’t because the first site was not a big enough memorial.
In the main the cemetery is very overgrown, some areas have been tidied and others are just buried in a tangled mass of weed, ivy and trees. This is one of the key reasons people come here and I would love to revisit in the snow for another look.
We walked back down the hill, past some of the old houses here and then stopped for lunch in the village. The food was not cheap, but it was very very nice !
We decided to walk go home via Hampstead Heath station so popped into the park near Parliament Hill, I definitely will try for a run here sometime soon, a very nice little hill and I can run on the grass as well ! It has a great view of the city of London and there were a lot of people on the top of the hill taking photos and picnicking, we stopped and I took a couple of photos as well.
We carried on down through a small section of the heath, past the ponds and their background of large homes.
Eventually we were out in Hampstead itself, we walked past St Johns Church, finally heading home after a wine in one of the local pubs.
It was another really good day out 🙂
Tuesday 06 August 2013 – Shoreditch, London.
Another week, another street art walk in Shoreditch. With the ever changing nature of street art it is always worth checking out what is happening around the streets of Shoreditch. With the street art blogosphere full of stories of new works being painted over the weekend Darryl and I agreed to meet up at Liverpool St and take a lunch time stroll.
I was really keen to check out four new panels from Alex Senna that went up while I was away last week. However, I was already too late, with all four panels blanked out and a new commissioned advert was being painted in their place, damnit. I love street art for its temporariness, but hate it for the same reason!
Darryl and I walked around for a couple of hour, checking out a few of the new pieces as I discovered a few works I had not seen before.
This new work from Vinie and ReaOne is really cool, I really liked the hair made out of their names.
On Blackall St I found a rarely closed shutter with an old Dscreet owl and some Sweet Toof teeth.
And a new mashup from phonebox artist D7606 collaborating with Ben Murphy.
I was really looking forward to seeing this wonderful work from Otto Schade.
Brazillian artist Cranio is back in town and has been pretty prolific, fixing up some old pieces as well as adding a few new ones.
Shok-1 has done a couple of his ‘x-ray’ style pieces, this is definitely my favourite, I would really like to watch one if these being painted as I am intruiged as to how he does it.
As you will know I am a big fan of the work of Jana and JS and had not seen these small stickers before, I have seen larger copies of both of these around Shoreditch and the kneeling Jana is one of my favourite pieces of all.
The more I look around the alleys and doorways of Shoreditch the more work by French artist C215 I find, often these are small pieces tucked out of the way, but they are always worth stopping to look at.
It was a good couple of hours out, I was bummed to have not see the Alex Senna panels, but I have read about some more of is work being completed over the past week so maybe I will get a chance to find some next time.
this was cool !
I have uploaded a bunch more to my Flickr stream.
Monday 05 August 2013 – Waterloo.
The weekend just gone saw the Urban Culture Festival at the Southbank Centre, I had other plans so was unable to turn up on the Saturday and Sunday, though I did go for a quick peek on Friday afternoon, though nothing was happening then. Among other activities there was some street art going on so I arranged to meet fellow appreciator Darryl there today.
I got there a bit early and went to have a look at the skate park to see if there was anything happening, but it was dead. I did find a new painting though.
Darryl and I started off at the Southbank Centre and a big new work by Stik. Part of the programme at the weekend was Stik giving a street art class, so after he had finished his painting a bunch of people coloured in the figures. It was pretty cool !
There was some tape art by Ben Murphy.
Around the back of the centre there was work by a few artists, sadly there was a whole load of work going on there when we arrived and it was really hard to get shots on most of the work and impossible for the large Dr Zadok and Spore mural as it was completely fenced off, with a large truck in front to add to the blockage. We did get to full see this 3Dom piece.
But the mural by Captain Kris, Spzero76 and Si Mitchell was hard to photograph in its entirety with the Spzero76 section marred by a large open door.
Dan Kitchener.
Just like in the Dan Kitchener mural it started to rain as we headed over towards the Leake St tunnel by Waterloo station, thankfully it stopped as we got out onto the road side, though it hammered down later on and I was stuck at Southbank for 30 minutes as I waited for it stop enough to run for a bus.
Leake St tunnel was totally different to last time I was there, and the Lost Souls Crew of Captain Kris, Spzero76 and Si Mitchell had been busy there as well.
Dr Zadok and Spore had a mural at the end of the tunnel.
And I also liked these pieces by some artists unknown to me, I am assuming handles.
Core247
Kaes
R5T
It was good to catch up with Darryl and see some new work and we arranged to meet up again tomorrow to see a couple of new works up in Shoreditch – before they were gone…
Sunday 04 August 2013 – Fish Island, Hackney Wick, London.
It was another fine day and El’s last day off before she heads back to work, so a walk followed by lunch and a glass of rose were definitely in order. It was also the day of the big London bike ride, with thousands expected to turn out at Olympic Park for the start of the ride. Naturally we decided to walk around the canal at Hackney Wick, right next door to the Olympic stadium was in order. Neither of us had been there before and the canal tow paths are always great to walk on, plus I knew there was a load of street art to look at!
We left home sort of early, definitely before lunch anyway and seemed to miss the crowds at Olympic Park. All credit to the designers of the area as it just absorbs loads and loads of people seemingly with out crowding. The Olympic stadium itself is still closed though.
The canals at Hackney Wick are behind the stadium and the new Energy Centre, but away from where the bike ride was starting and it was fairly quite there, a nice place for a stroll.
We walked around Fish Island (which is not really an island at all !) for a while, watching this canal boat work its way through the locks up towards the Regents Canal. There are a huge number of boats on the canals at the moment, and I frequently see them moving around, but rarely through going the locks.
Some of the locks do not look that welcoming though – I definitely would not swim here…
I liked Fish Island, it is still a little rough, but you can see it is going to be all hipster posh and middle class sooner rather than later and there are loads of new apartments being built nearby. I could see myself living in a warehouse conversion like this though…
It was a great stroll around a part of London new to both of us, followed by a very nice lunch and rose back at Stratford.
There was of course loads of street art to look at too.
This wonderful new piece by Ekta has been the cause of some controversy…
Along with this new mural
Run
Sweet Toof
Malarky
I really liked this by Josh Jeavons, I haven’t seen any of his stuff before.
Broken Fingaz
Some unknown artists
I liked this painting on two wooden panels behind bars
I guess this sums it all up for some people 🙂
Saturday 27 July 2013 – London.
I am pleased to say that the mere mention of rain and storms in my last post was enough to pretty much scare it all away and the long English summer returned with a vengeance, with some more hot days – getting up to 34 degrees at one stage. Though, the period of a guaranteed no-rain day is now over, thankfully to be honest. I was going to avoid long blog posts that covered many days, but as I am so far behind again I thought I would do a quick week catch up and then try to get back to just recording things that happened when I had photos to prove it, as it were.
El has taken two weeks off work for her summer holiday and to celebrate a birthday (Happy Birthday :xx ), this was really cool as it meant we got hang out a lot more during the day as well as doing a few celebratory activities too.
Way back when I was in Sri Lanka in March El had booked us tickets to the David Bowie exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the show had been a sell out for months and I had been waiting eagerly to go and visit, El had been while I wasa away. It was really cool, I had expected some sort of fuddy-duddy old school museum style exhibition (no idea why I thought that really), but was blown away by the massive screens and great sound – as well as all the costumes and other Bowie related memorabilia. Fabulous show… As expected no photos were allowed in the exhibition, though we did have a quick walk around the lower reaches of the V and A, looking for lunch 🙂
After the V and A we walked up to the Royal Geographic Society gallery just up the road, this is a real gem of a gallery that has outstanding free photography exhibitions and is always worth a visit. I do however, know that the travel photographer of the year winners and finalists were on display and I was keen to check it out. There was some fabulous photos, really quite inspiring stuff, and I was pleased to see it was not all professional photographers with high end cameras getting all the glory, no photos allowed here either!
Our final stop for the day was to check out the Sebastiao Salgado ‘Genesis’ exhibition at the Natural History Museum. This was a collection of (mostly) stunning black and white images taken in wilderness areas all over the world. Lovely ! No photos of course !
That evening we took a slow stroll South Bank looking for a pizza and a wine
It was then went back to my place to watch the sun set and the moon rise from my deck. I took a few photos of the offices on the other side of the Thames.
The following day we took a trip out to Greenwich, going the long way via the Emirates Cable Car at North Greenwich. Which we discovered does not actually go to Greenwich…. But it was a fun ride over the Thames anyway, with some great views over London.
We had a brief walk around Greenwich, pass the Cutty Sark.
Upup through the park to the observatory for a cup of coffee before wandering back down into town for a really nice market side lunch of Ethiopian curried veges.
I had forgotten to get the address of the bank where my mum worked in the fifties so I will have to go back again, not that I am complaining at all, Greenwich is very nice.
While I was in Sri Lanka I read a BookFace post from one of my favourite bands, Mogwai, announcing a one of London show at the Barbican Theatre with the band playing the soundtrack to the movie ‘Zidane – a 21st century portrait’ live. The film follows the famous French footballer around a match when he was playing for Real Madrid. I was glad I bought the tickets as soon as I saw them advertised as the show was a quick sell-out and was on Friday night. The theatre in the Barbican is such a brilliant place to see a band like Mogwai, great seating with clear views from everywhere and a sound quality that was the best I have ever experienced, especially with the quite tones to extreme noise of a live post rock show. I loved it !!!
On Saturday night El, her sons and I went out for dinner to a pop up restaurant, catered by the Basement galley in the Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum. An old Victoria line underground carriage was converted into a restaurant for the night, what a great idea. This was our table.
The food was excellent and it should have been a fun night, but we were seated by a very noisy large group and this spoiled the evening for me, and it showed on my face. Sorry…
It was a really good week, so nice to be able to hang out together and not have to rush around doing things at the weekends.
Last week as I was wandering around Brick Lane I ran across Puerto Rican artist Alexis Diaz working on a beautiful new work on Hanbury St. He was painting this by hand using small brushes and had been going for the best part of a week before I saw him.
I finally went back today to have a look at the completed work. It is magnificent !
The detail is amazing.
It was a very humid morning and quite unpleasant for walking around – and trust me, I have walked in some serious humidity… London is just unpleasant in this weather. So it was only a short walk,but on the way I also spotted these other pieces I have not seen before.
Dan Kitchener.
A newly complted work by Alex Senna that was sadly partially blocked by a car.
And next to that a newish piece by Eoin.
It was a good but short time out.
Tuesday 23 July 2013 – London.
The two and half weeks of pretty much perfect weather had to end at some stage and it did in the wee hours of this morning – in fairly spectacular style! The television news had reported that thunder storms were expected overnight in London so before I went to bed I dug my tripod out in case something special happened.
It was a very humid night and I really did not expect to get a lot of sleep but must have dropped off as I was awoken by the rumble of thunder around 1:30 am. I lay there for a while before finally deciding to go and have a look at the action as I was awake and unlikely to go back to sleep any time soon. Disappointingly there was nothing really happening on my side of the block and I stood there on the deck for a while watching the flashes of light in the clouds from the lightening out of sight on the other side of the building. I went into the kitchen for a look out one of the side windows and could see a massive rain storm sweeping in from the north west. All of a sudden the wind hit the side of the building and started blowing things around the kitchen as it howled through the open window, it was so strong I struggled to push the large window closed. That was it, photography was on !
When I got back onto the deck with my camera set up on the tripod the horizon to the South had all but disappeared in the rain.
I had not taken photos of lightening before and experimented with a few methods without really knowing the results until I uploaded to my laptop this morning. This was the first one I got, a lucky break on a ten second exposure. The wind was really starting to hit so this is a bit soft.
The rain soon followed the wind gusts into the deck and I made a hurried exit back into the house 🙂
I also realised I was being a bit daft shooting straight off the deck when I could turn the camera forty degrees and I would have Tower Bridge as my back drop. As I waited for the wind to drop I swapped lenses from the 16-35mm to the good old nifty fifty as the images were just not sharp enough on the wide angle.
I took a lot of twenty and thirty second exposures, just hoping lightening would strike while the shutter was open. More often than not it didn’t, seemingly arriving just as the shutter closed. I have an awful lot of images of the skyline.
But I was very lucky a few times….
It was a great storm, spectacular, and it only lasted for a few minutes before it blew away to the east and I could go back to bed.
It was well worth the effort, as photography often is – I just need to remind myself of this more frequently and get out and do it.
Where is Phil now? 
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