london – Page 8 – Where is Phil now?

Southbank photo walk.

Thursday 18 July 2013 – London.

Well it has been a pretty busy week with social activities happening every day. It is a pity I cannot say the same on the job front, but I am still plugging away at it with a couple of agencies rung and jobs applied for, one day, one day.

Today I had two things on, a visit to Sydenham to see the new street art which I wrote about in the previous post and then in the evening I met up with a fellow photographer and music lover Steve for a photo walk along South Bank – though I will say not a lot of photographer happened.

I have been waiting for the shutters to be down on these shops near my house so I could get a photo of the old Malarky paintings. The last time I saw them down I did not have my camera on me.

I met Steve at the skate park and took some photos while I waited, there was not a lot of action at the time but I did manage to get a couple of good shots, I am a bit gutted I cut his hand off, otherwise this would be near perfect !

The next one was a better photo, just the action wasnt as good 🙂

Steve and I didn’t take any photos between the skate park and London Bridge, we walked and chatted and battled out way through the crowds taking advantage of another lovely summer evening. I stopped for a look at Hays Galleria on the far side of London Bridge and there were some people playing petanque over a glass of plonk (or more I suspect).

We walked around the More London area for a while, past the Batman logo of the PWC building.

We had a bit of a play with some of the angles in the buildings around here.

As we passed Tower Bridge I took this picture to add to my collection of skylines. You have to love that sky!

I had heard that the barge I photographed earlier in the week with a new painting on it by Alice Pasquini was being painted some more so we walked up to have a look, but the new painting was hidden behind an old sailing barge so there was not much to see apart from this on a wall.

We crossed over Tower bridge and took a walk around the rich kids play ground of St Katherines dock, we were looking for a decent angle to get a sunset over Tower Bridge but there was not much happening there so we decided to head back over to the south side of the Thames and grab a pint or two. As we were crossing the bridge the alarm went, the gates were closed and the bridge was raised. This was very cool, I have never seen the bridge up before – a new experience.

We did end up having a couple of pints, it was a good night and an end to a good day.

Sydenham Street Art Walk

Thursday 18 July 2013 – Sydenham, London.

When I was looking at the new street art over in Shoreditch on Monday I ran into fellow street art aficionado Darryl taking pictures of Alexis Diaz working on a new piece. Neither of us had been down to Sydenham to see the results of a recent festival so decided to head down and check it out.

It was another bright and hot day, nice for being outside but not so great for mid-day photography !

We got to see the bulk of the street art work, but missed out on all the pieces painted on shop shutters – rudely the shops were all open for business, during the day. So inconsiderate! This shop also had stacked their wares over a couple of pieces as well.

What we did see was pretty cool and it was nice that it was all reasonably well contained in the high street.

The Alo door and JoyceTreasure piece were the only viewable bits from the second hand furniture store.

Luckily all the big works were very visible and we were very lucky that on a third walk past the entire Millo and Hunto joint piece was visible. The first two visits had a car parked under the no parking sign!

Louis Masai mural – “Save the lemurs”.

I love this large piece by Alice Pasquini.

Dr Zadok.

This fabulous and large mural by Bailon was very hard to photograph in its entirety as it was up an alleyway. I took a few images with a plan to stitch them together, it sort of worked. I do need to practise on my pano stitching, I just don’t have the time right now. Enough to give you an idea though.

It was a good couple of hours out and about, thanks Darryl!

Shoreditch street art updated.

Monday 15 July 2013 – Shoreditch, London.

Shhhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone, but it was another glorious glorious day here in London with nary a cloud in the sky all day – so it’s a good day to for a ride up to Shoreditch for a street art walk/ride then! I have not been to Shoreditch for at least a week so of course there is a load of new things to see and photograph, and having the bike meant getting further – and more coolly. By cool I am, of course, referring to temperature, not me being stylish – something I definitely was not today!

I had a great few hours out and about around Shoreditch, I got to see a few things I was looking for and finally found a massive wall by ROA that I have tried to find twice before. I also ran into fellow street art aficionado Darryl who I met once before while watching RUN paint the wall at the Village Underground.

One of the things I had been planning on doing for a while was visiting the exhibition by RUN and Dscreet at the Cock and Bull Gallery in the basement of The Tramshed in Rivington st. It was really worth the wait as there were some great pieces on show there, as well as a very cool backdrop of painted walls, I bought a booklet on the show and am tempted to buy an art work as well.

After a wee coffee break I rode up Bethnal Green Road in search of the large wall painted by ROA a few weeks ago, and this time I found it. Though only having a fixed fifty mm lens on the Canon I could only shoot some of the details as there were too many cars in the narrow alley way to get a wide shot. I will go back as it is such a cool cool painting.

From there I rode around the streets of Shoreditch and snapped a few photos, most are on Flickr, but below are a couple as a sampler.

In a park behind Brick Lane I found a theatre group doing an outdoor rehearsal so I watched them for a while which was cool.

I was really excited to find this Phlegm that I knew was around but had never seen before, again I was not able to capture it all due to today’s lens choice. Weight won over flexibility – plus it is always good to shoot with a fixed a lens every now and then – keeps me honest!

Alex Diaz has been painstakingly painting this wall by hand with a tiny brush for most of a week, stunning piece.

A Jana and JS I have been looking for, I really like their stuff.

And a Stik I haven’t seen before.

It was a great few hours out 🙂

South Bank skate park – BMX revisted.

I took a second trip to the skatepark on Friday evening, a different crowd of skaters and BMXers from the previous night.

I used the Canon and 70-200 again, I am loving this lens.

I think that is it for the skate park now 🙂

Long Live South Bank skate park, – BMX action

I took another trip back up to Southbank yesterday evening to see what was happening and hoping to see some of the BMXers who also use the skate park in action, and for a change I was lucky!

I will confess to being way out of touch with who is who in the biking and skating world, but this sole BMXer who was using the park was damn good, pretty much pulling off every trick seamlessly. He was great to watch.

I need to learn some leasons shooting both skaters and BMXer’s, I missed the important part of the tale whip, getting the bike 180 degrees out from the rider.

But I got most of them right….

Maybe not this one….

or this whip again 🙂

I will end on a positive note though.

I really enjoyed watching this guy ride and aim to go back tonight and see if there is a repeat, now that I know what I need to sort out photographically. I was pretty happy with my images, pretty well in focus, pretty well exposed, as sharp as I would expect shooting a moving object without flash from sunlight into shade against a confusing backdrop. So yeah, happy.

I am enjoying my photography for a change!

If you are reading my blog for the first time, The Southbank Centre have proposed an expansion of the Southbank site to allow more space for art and music, which I do agree with…. What I do NOT agree with is the taking of the undercroft skate park to turn into it retail space to help pay for the expansion. The skate park is one of the oldest existing skate parks in the world and has existed here since 1976. Its is wrong in so many ways to close it.

To read more about it and support those fighting the change read more here. LLSB!

http://www.llsb.com/

Street art update

Wednesday 03 July 2013 – London

I took my new bike for a spin on Tuesday and was just riding down City Road when I spotted this Toaster up on a window. Last week I found this video from the creators of Toaster and it is an amusing watch as there are not a lot of Toasters left in London that I can see I was quite pleased to have seen it. Of course, there are probably thousands of them all over London, I just do not see them!

http://www.thetoaster.co.uk/

And this new piece from Phomer.

Today I met a friend who has never been to London before and we took a pretty major walk around town sort of ending with a brief walk around some of the main parts of Shoreditch, as always there were new things to see – or things to find that I had missed before….

Conor Harrington in Whitecross Market.

Dscreet outside the gallery at the Tramshed, I must try and arrive there when the gallery is open as there is an exhibition of Dscreet and Run work that I am quite keen to see – has anyone been yet ?

DALeast

Stik

AngryFace

T*wat

Alo

And another Jana and JS, still looking for more of their new work before it disappears.

Thanks to Inspiring City for identifying the next two for me.

Swoon

Alice Pasquini

Some unknowns.

It would be nice to see some more political stuff around too….

The art of Leake St tunnel.

Wednesday 26 June 2013, Leake St, Waterloo, London.

Leake St tunnel is a legal graffiti area near Waterloo Station and I was last there back in January and talked about it briefly in this post. One of my fellow street art bloggers, the always cool Inspiring City, went there at the weekend to have a look at a paint jam organised by London Vandal to raise money for cancer research. I would have gone if I had known about it !

I have not heard of most of the painters in action at the weekend so it was time to go and have a quick look see. Though I did not recognise much of the work, it was still pretty interesting and there were quite a few other people there taking photos as well.

Icon.

Artista

Unknown 🙂

There is a load more stuff to look at, mostly graf rather than ‘art’, but is a cool spot and worth a visit.

Life is about using the whole box of crayons.

Friday June 21 2013 – London.

To save having to repeat myself I should just refer you, dear reader, back to the opening paragraph of my last week wrap-up post which discusses the complete lack of progress on the job front… Oh well, good things come with time.

On Monday I signed myself up to Twitter, not that I can ever see myself tweeting, there is no way I can say anything in just one hundred and sixty characters! I signed up because it seems to be the best way to find out about things I am interested in, in the most expedient way. Hopefully from now on I will not miss so many good gigs and interesting exhibitions, plus of course football results when the season starts.

On Monday night El and I went to see Siouxsie Sioux and band perform at the Royal Festival Hall as part of the Yoko Ono curated Meltdown Festival. I had only heard about the gig quite late so by the time I got tickets we were in the third row from the back. There were so many great acts playing as part of the festival, I would have really liked to have seen Patti Smith and the Stooges – especially supported by Savages, a young English band who I really like.

What can I say about the gig ? I guess “Wow” sums it up pretty well. The sound and lights were amazing, Siouxsie looked amazing in a skin tight white vinyl body suit and her voice had not changed in thirty years, she sounded fantastic. The band was not the Banshees, but still good.

The bulk of the set was the album Kalaidoscope played from start to finish, with the opener ‘Happy house’ sending shivers up my spine – it sounded that good. It was a surprise as I really expected a greatest hits show, but it is a great album, so no complaints. There were a couple of encores, with a bunch of classics ‘Israel’, ‘Spellbound’ and ‘Arabian nights’ being the highlights. They did of course do the big hit ‘Prudence’, but meh, a Beatles track is never going to be a favourite of mine, though the rest of the crowd loved it ! Siouxsie did a few songs off a solo album I have never heard and none of them really got me going – average rock songs I thought. It was great show – hour and half long, awesome venue and she still has the voice and the moves. Siouxsie was supported by another old punk hero, Viv Albertine from The Slits, who performed some songs from her first album in twenty five years. She was pretty good too.

As the gig was just up the Southbank from my place we walked home. its not bad walk..

On Tuesday I walked back up to the Southbank again as I noticed some of the graffiti had changed at the skate park and I really liked this new one and thought I should photograph it before it was painted over.

I walked back home via the streets rather than the river side and found this little Space Invader under one of the arches for the train tracks to Blackfriars station.

I also found a wonderful photography exhibition from members of the Arena group at the Menier Gallery in Southwark. I was there for a good hour, which is pretty remarkable for me in a gallery. There was a good range of styles on display from a number of very good photographers. I loved it and would have liked to have shared it with El but it finished later in the week sadly.

In the evening I went over to Dartford to visit my uncle and to pick up my tri-pod -I must do some night photography sometime soon, no excuses now!

On Wednesday I had arranged to meet a friend for lunch in Shephards Bush so took the train over to Westbourne Grove and had walked over to SheBu and looked for some of the small patches of street art in the area – it is the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea so I was not expecting too much. There is an old Banksy at the far end of Portobello Rd though.

I caught up with my cousin for a beer in Soho in the late afternoon which was great, I have been very slack with catching up with family and for that I do apologise !!

I have been thinking about getting a pushbike for a while now and on Friday I decided to start having a serious look around, I found a couple of bike shops on the internet that were reasonably local and went for a walk to see if I could find something. Sadly one place no longer existed and the second did not have anything I wanted – basically a single speed with raised mountain bike style bars. I am not in a particular rush but it would mean I could roam a bit further without having to use public transport – plus I want to be able to ride to work if I can, when I get the elusive job!

I found out on Twitter (only time it has been useful so far! ) that it was world skate day today so I waited to late in the afternoon and then grabbed my big camera and zoom lens for a change and went out to have a look see. There were a lot of skaters there and a couple of them were pretty good. I watched from the wings for a while, snapped a few photos and then started the walk back home.

It was great to be out with the big camera and long lens and I took quite few other photos around and from South bank. It was all good fun.

The skyline of London is slowly changing, especially over the ‘city’. The tall building in the middle is known as the cheese grater. It is designed like this so that it does not sit in the sightline of St Pauls – the council allows that no building should spoil some designated clear sights of St Pauls, which I think is pretty cool, especially when I get shots like the one below.

Outside the Tate Modern some buskers were bubble blowing massive bubbles to the delight of a lot of children – and one or two adults as well.

Further along the Thames at Bankside I found these young buskers playing cellos which sounded amazing in the tunnel of the arches.

It was a pretty good week, I didn’t achieve much on the work front but I saw some good stuff, heard some great music and spent some time with some great people!

Southbank Skate park

On Monday I finally did something I never thought I would do and signed up to Twitter. It seems a lot of activities that I am interested in like gigs and exhibitions are now promoted on Twitter first. Today I saw a tweet about go skateboarding day being held today and thought I should head back along to Southbank to see what was happening.

For a change I took the big camera with the big lens as I hardly ever use it and it seemed like the best option for shooting skaters. The skate park at Southbank is covered and a little dim for flash free photography, so a reasonably tough shoot. There were a couple of quite good skaters there, along with a couple of photographers and some guys shooting video so I kind of stayed out of the way.

As I mentioned on this post there is a proposal to move the skate park and re-use the location for retail outlets and frankly this sucks….

More here http://www.longlivesouthbank.com/

Here is what I got.

The (limited) street art of Ladbroke Grove.

Wednesday 19 June 2013 – Ladbroke Grove, London.

For a while now I have been wanting to check to see if there was any street art left near the Westway at the ends of both Portobello Rd and Ladbroke Grove. Yesterday I was meeting a friend for lunch in Shephards Bush so I took the opportunity to catch the tube to Westbourne Grove and have a look around, before walking to She Bu. Naturally I chose the hottest day of the year so far. At 26 degrees and with high humidity I really should have worn shorts as it was a sticky walk.

There are a couple of pieces at the end of Portobello Rd that I have seen before, mainly this piece by Banksy.

and this piece by Paul don Smith.

This piece by CODE FC, looks quite old as well.

I walked up Portobello Rd as I was looking for the Graffik Gallery which has a collection of very expensive work for sale, but was in between exhibitions. On the outside of their building was another one of the “Thomas the tank’ stencils I saw for the first time in Blackall St last Friday, I now know they are by iCON.

The area under the arches of the Westway was barriered off with hoardings and behind them I spotted a couple of Stiks as well as some other work but I could not get a clear look at them so I followed the Westway down to Ladbroke Grove in the hunt for some rumoured painting there. I did find two walls in the same block that had been painted. iCON seems to be quite prolific here.

As well as a piece by Elmo Hood

And a few other bits and pieces

I walked around a bit more but did not find anything else, though I was pretty happy to find any at all, the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is not really a street art / graffiti place !