These two pictures don’t really impart just how hot it was in Trafalgar Square when these were taken.
The mid-30s Celsius is probably nothing to make a fuss about in some parts of the world, but here in the UK that’s hot!
Paddling isn’t allowed in the fountains, but dipping your feet in is apparently fine, and so many people were taking advantage of the cool water in this way.
The second shot shows the Fourth Plinth, which I wrote about in a previous post.
There wasn’t anything to panic about really, but the blog title suits the slightly disturbing and frenetic imagery that resulted from these two attempts to track a Tube train with my camera as it pulled into the station. Tube Panic is also, incidentally, the name of an arcade videogame from Nichibutsu that I remember enjoying back in the 80s.
While I don’t think these attempts at capturing motion were fully successful (or even partially successful for that matter) I still like them. There’s enough detail to realise what you’re looking at, but it’s distorted enough to make them nice an abstract.
Maybe next time in London I might try burning through a full roll of film taking similar shots to see how successful I am. Maybe I could make a contact sheet and circle the best ones with a grease pen. 🙂
When visiting the Evelyn Hofer exhibition at The Photographers Gallery I glanced out the wndow and saw this scene below me. The thing that caught my eye initially was the woman in the window above the air-con units. It’s not an actual woman, it’s a print or painting visible through the glass, but it stood aut in the scene.
The rest of the surrounding have a pleasing isometric quality to them though and I think I would have taken a picture even had I not seen the woman in the window.
The brighter area at lower centre-right is a reflection of the gallery floor. A polariser might have helped had I had one with me.
I’m off to the cinema after work today to see The Marvels, so this shot of a theatre kiosk seemed an apt choice for today’s post. Do you think they sell hot dogs there perchance?
This wheel kinda looks like how I feel at present. I seem to be having a lot of trouble finding enthusiasm for anything, even things I enjoy, on a regular basis. I don’t think I’m depressed or anything, just that I can’t seem to find the energy to do stuff. My attention wanders but never really settles on anything, just drifts from one thing to another, not gaining any real benefit. I’m finding it difficult to focus on things, both at work and at home.
It’s not a permanent, 24/7 thing – sometimes I feel better, but it’s noticeable enough for me to be giving it thought. It’s especially frustrating because, sometimes when I have free time to do something I’d like I end up doing nothing, which is a big disappointment. Free time is something I have in limited supply and to waste it is not good.
I’ve started to wonder if I might have Long Covid or something, as these symptoms are often associated with that condition, but I don’t really have any of the other signs. Or maybe I’m just getting older.
When walking to the West End of London, after disembarking my train, I decided to take a route I’ve never used before. Instead of heading south down Woburn Place / Southampton Row, which is the way I would normally go if walking, I headed further west along Euston Road and then cutting south down Gower Street.
I didn’t have any particular reason for choosing Gower Street other than it’s a road I’ve never walked before (and might therefore have some things worth photographing), and that it would take me towards my destination.
I already posted a couple of pictures yesterday that I shot outside University College London, but the ones featured today are what I photographed as I continued down the street past rows of elegant terraced houses. One of the things that struck me about these was the number on chimney pots visible above each property, with ten individual pots being visible on most of the buildings. Each has five floors including basement and attic, so I guess two or more fireplaces on each floor – which doesn’t actually sound that many – but to see them all emerging from the rooftop together is quite striking. None of the houses in the estate where I live has any chimneys, they instead have a simple vented tile on the apex of the roof where fumes from gas fires can escape (assuming a gas fire is still in use – our h0ome, and I suspect many others, now relies totally on gas-powered central heating, with any fumes vented from a flue from the boiler.. Different times, I guess.
As promised, this post marks a change in imagery from all the Malaga pictures I’ve been posting. I’ve now moved onto a roll of Ilford HP5+ that I shot on a visit to London back in September. The trip was to see exhibitions at The Photographers Gallery (Evelyn Hofer), and The National Portrait Gallery (Sir Paul McCartney). Bot exhibitions were excellent, although I enjoyed the Evelyn Hofer photographs more.
After getting off the train, I decided to walk into the West End rather than catch the Tube, so was able to get a bunch of pictures during the amble southwards. These first two were taken outside University College London.
Those were the words of Vyvyan the punk in the classic British 1980s sitcom The Young Ones. And they align with my feeling about posting pictures of Malaga which I’ve now been doing for <checks blog> the last five weeks or so,
I’m not actually bored of my pictures, or of Malaga itself, just the act of posting an almost continual daily stream of them since early October. It will be a nice change to post some different stuff, I think. I guess that shooting four rolls of film and getting lots of pictures I liked is what leads to this situation. There are worse things, I suppose.
With that in mind, I’ll drop a big image dump of some remaining Malaga pictures today before posting something new tomorrow.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f.3.5-5.6 AF-D & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro
