a Photo Blog, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to dear dirty New York
Continuing my walk along the South Bank after seeing the Sugimoto exhibit at the Hayward Gallery, I came again to the Tate Modern with, for some reason, this quotation from the end of Voltaire’s Candide struck in lights on a frame at the back of a lawn where pigeons flatly rested. Uncanny.
Back from my travels. Over the next week or so, I’ll be posting snapshots from my travels in New York and Chicago. This was a trip to catch up with friends and family and take care of NY personal business. So it was extremely fulfilling in those areas, not so productive on the photography front.
My current ethics of photography do not really include taking shots of people in the street without their consent and/or collaboration. In this case, I crouched down in front of him so he knew I was there and tourists were clearly photographing him with their phones from bad vantage points, and he was not complaining so I took it he was tacitly consenting. I will probably post a few other street shots over the coming days from this trip that contravene this personal rule of mine, where, for one reason or another, I felt taking the shot was validated in some way – we shall see…
…gathering off Tenth Avenue in September, 2009.
Another image from my back catalogue of Septembers past – this one from 2009.
This one, like the last post, is also from September, 2006.
From La Petite Ceinture we walked on to the Bois de Boulogne, a large park in Paris’ 16th arrondissement.
At the summit of Arthur’s Seat I shot an in camera panoramic jpeg. Impossible not to include some of the hordes of tourists who had preceded us up the hill, laying waste to the grasses and other flora along the way. Tremendous views, though. Click on the pictures below to see them larger (you may have to click the post title first if you’re seeing this in email or social).
After the train brought us back from North Berwick (see previous few posts) to Edinburgh’s Waverley station, we walked back to our hotel via Princes St and Lothian Rd. Click any of the pictures below to see them bigger (if seeing in email or social media you may need to click the post title first).
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After the cathedral we walked to the Grote Markt (the central market square or “big market”) and on to the riverside, walking up to the Lange Wapper a statue of a character from local folklore who appears to be urinating on some of his supplicants. Click pictures to see them larger (click the post title, above, if you’re seeing this in email and clicking pictures doesn’t seem to work).
(with apologies to Nevil Shute)
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Some iPhone snaps of the lovely Carron Pond in Farnham Park a few days ago. Click on any image to see them enlarged (if viewing in email you may need to click on the post title to open in a browser first).
The French for “still life” would be more appropriate here, nature morte.
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After returning to Nanjizal from near Land’s End we drove up to the disused Botallack (pronounced to rhyme with metallic) Mine, setting for both television versions of Poldark (although, later, we passed the actual Poldark Mine in the car). If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.
We arrived in Plymouth and before even leaving the car park I tried one more time to rephotograph my text images on location. Still not doing anything for me. If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.
Then, when we left the car park, we realised we were not in the most salubrious part of town.
This was a carefully composed shot and it looks it. I then waited for the bird to take off and while the composition is a tad less balanced, I think it may still be more interesting:
Lyme Regis is also the setting for John Fowles’ great novel, The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Meryl Streep was in the movie, also quite good) and this dusky, silhouetted self portrait in a beachfront shop window reminded me of it. I’ve now posted 6 times over 2 days just to cover a single day of our excursion. It may be a long month.
