Category: Cranes

Cranes caught in the searchlight

This is the third consecutive posting here based on photos I took, two days ago now, while walking from the Angel to Barbican tube.

The reason for the abundance of photos from that walk was the light. It was a classic London early evening, when the sky above was getting grey and dull, but when there was a gap in the clouds out west, and the sunlight came crashing through that gap horizontally, light a searchlight, picking out random things that were sticking upwards, above the point at which old London stopped going upwards and only new London protrudes. Not everything doing this got caught in the beam, just some things. Behind them or next to them there would be objects entirely unlit and already fading fast into darkness.

Things like cranes:

That’s a fairly conventional photo for me, because the darkening sky is the background, as it often is when I photo evening sunlight crashing into cranes.

But this next one, taken rather later as I neared the Barbican, seemed to me to be something else again:

I have a kind of check list mentality when judging my own photos. I have a list of things I like, and the more such things are happening in the photo, the higher the photo scores. Cranes, tick, with the evening sun hitting them, tick. Another is interesting architectural silhouettes. Of such Big Things as the Gherkin, the Walkie Talkie, the Shard, and so on. And although those Barbican towers are not the prettiest Things in London by a long way, their silhouettes are distinctive, because of that saw tooth effect you get at the sides. I also like the understated roof clutter there.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The light at the end of the Beech Street tunnel

Today, I was meeting a friend in the area of Angel tube, and then, because the weather was so good, I decided to walk a little, to the canal nearby, and then south, towards the City. I took many photos. But as often happens when I photo ordinary things but in better than ordinary light, one of the best photos I photoed was something of a surprise. It happened right near the end. It was getting dark before I reached the City, and a signpost sent me along that strange tunnel near Barbican tube, to Barbican tube.

This is the tunnel I’m talking about:

I googled “Barbican tunnel” when I got home, and soon learned that this is apparently the Beech Street tunnel, although all it said on google maps was “B100”. Earlier this year, there was a apparently some sort of light show on show in this tunnel. But this evening what got my attention was the light at the end of the tunnel, which looked like this:

The natural pink and yellow of the sunset is what makes this, but I also like the non-natural green of the traffic lights, and the green reflections in the tunnel roof, joining in with those green roofs beyond.

In the distance, a crane. In London, cranes are hard to avoid. Not that I’d want to.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Chinese lanterns and a crane

Indeed. Photoed today by me in London’s Chinese district:

Today I went on a long photo-walk, and am exhausted, plus I have other things I have to do before turning in. So, that will have to be that for today.

I don’t actually know if they are Chinese lanterns, because the sun is doing all the lighting.there. But they are definitely Chinese somethings.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Confirmation that The Peak is a one-off rather than a two-off

Somewhat over a year ago I wrote about When what I think it is determines how ugly or beautiful I feel it to be, in connection with this building:

This is described, at any rate by its owners and its various occupants, as The Peak.

And that photo of mine above, taken from the top of the Westminster Cathedral Tower, is my Peak photo which best illustrates the oddly deceptive appearance of this decidedly odd-looking building. It looks like a 60s rectangular lump, to which 90s or 00s curvatures, on the right as we look, and on the top, have been added. But, as I discovered when concocting that previous posting, the whole thing was built all at once. It looks like a two-off building rather than a one-off building, but looks deceive, or deceived me, for a while. Two-off good, one-off bad, was how I had been thinking. It was two-off, so (aesthetically) good. Organic, additive, blah blah. But, what was I supposed to think, on discovering that it was really an inorganic and un-additive one-off?

Now, buried in my photo-archives, I find this photo, taken on October 28th 2008, which confirms that The Peak is indeed a one-off, because here it is (here it was), all being built in one go. There really is no doubt about it:

When I took this photo, I was a lot more interested in the anti-pigeon spikes on top of those street lamps, and on top of the railway sign, than I was in the building work in the background.

How I now feel about The Peak, aesthetically, is that I still rather like it, if only because I have paid so much attention to it over the years, and feel sort of proprietorial towards it, as you would towards a somewhat clumsy child that you have adopted. (That feeling applies, for me, to a great many London buildings.)

Also, whatever else you think of it, when you see it, you at once know where you are. It is very recognisable, recognisability being a quality in buildings which I appreciate more and more. “Iconic” is the rather silly word that estate agents and suchlike use to allude to this quality. But they have a point, even if they use a silly word to point to their point. That “you could be anywhere” feeling is not a good one, in a city or anywhere else.

“Other creatures” (see below) because of the pigeon scaring.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The last really fine day of 2018 (1): Some pleasurable reinforcement

There is building activity going on at the top end of Horseferry Road, which is near where I live. And this afternoon, when I sallied forth to enjoy the last really fine day of 2018 and to photo London, this bit of London activity was one of the very first things I photoed. I really like how it now looks:

The walk lasted a long time, and that knackered me. But what really knackered me was the shopping I needed to do at the end of the walk. The final bit of that being lugging two bags of supermarket purchases up the stairs to my home. This is not my idea of fun, even if it didn’t kill me and even if it did make me stronger.

So now all I am fit for is a little TV followed by bed. I photoed many more pleasurable things today besides the above, which is why this posting is called “The last really fine day of 2018 (1)” rather than just “The last really fine day of 2018”. But all of that will have to wait. I promise at least one more posting concerning today’s photos, to make retrospective sense of that (1), but no more than that. Good night.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

I am the product – Canada goose isn’t a big bird any more

When I google “crane”, what I want to see is tall pointy things made of metal for shifting stuff around on building sites, not birds posing en masse in a lake. You can’t always get what you want.

A further illustration of that same principle came when, this morning, I had reason to google “canada goose”, because this time I actually wanted to learn about a bird. I photoed some lines of birds a while back, in Rye, and blog pal 6k commented today that they were probably Canada geese. And because 6k backed this up with some migration info that seemed quite informed, this sounded right, despite the fact that Rye is nowhere near to Canada.

So I googled “canada goose”.

But what I got was lots of expensive jackets with furry hoods. Even after two pages of links to stuff about the jackets, there was literally no mention of any bird.

You can’t sell a bird for a thousand quid, I guess. Or, not a bird like a Canada goose. I am not the customer of Google. I am Google’s product. Overpriced jacket sellers are Google’s customer.

However, if you google canada geese, sanity is restored. And I think Canada geese migrating is even better. It would appear from the images you get if you look there that Canada geese do often form great big mobs, fish shoal style. It can take them a while to get organised into lines.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

How the Shard was looking nine years ago

Nine years, to the day, actually. I was trying for ten years to the day, but after concocting what follows, I realised that these actually date from October 8th 2009:

The first one shows a rather strange footbridge that used to go over the site, taking pedestrians from London Bridge Station to Guy’s Hospital, and places beyond. Most of the other photos were taken from on that bridge.

What surprises me now is how chaotic it all looks, especially when I zoomed in on a particular bit of chaos.

What that lumpy cylinder that they are manhandling is, I do not know.

The website to be seen in the final photo seems to be long gone.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Photoing The Wheel from Tottenham Court Road

If I had a pound for every time someone’s told me that they like to photo The Wheel from Tottenham Court Road, I wouldn’t have any more pounds than I already have, because it’s just me that likes to do this. But, I really like it.

I’m talking about photos like this one:

Great light there, don’t you think? It could be an oil painting. Exactly as it came out of the camera, no Photoshop(clone)ing. That dates from April of 2015. As you can see, that weird entrance to Tottenham Court Road Tube station was still under construction.

Here’s a couple more, taken in 2016 …:

… and in 2017:

That crane there should have told me that something ominous was in the works, but actually I was taken by surprise.

Take a look at what the same scene looked like today:

That’s right. The Wheel is about to be blotted out of this particular picture.

I moved nearer, which moved the top of the Wheel down to the bottom gap in the structure:

I took a final close up:

And that may well be the last time that I ever photo The Wheel from Tottenham Court Road.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Views from the John Lewis roof garden

On Thursday September 27th, I photoed a leaning crane, from the top of the John Lewis Roof Garden. But that wasn’t all I photoed. Of course not. I wouldn’t go to a spot like that and take just the one photo.

A few more views:

My usual preoccupations. Big Things. Cranes (including window cleaning cranes). Roof clutter. Scaffolding.

Can you spot Big Ben? Clue: scaffolding.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Another leaning crane

This phenomenon continues to trouble me. Intellectually, I know that the people supervising these circumstances have them all under control. If ever there was a trade in Britain that knows what it is doing, it is the big city building trade. Things get done on time, all according to plan, and the results work as intended. And cranes do not fall over. (The financing can go all over the shop, which means that plans can change dramatically, but that’s a different story.)

But it still feels to me as if this crane might fall over. It still feels to me that, at any moment, something near the ground, on the left as we look, just might … SNAP!!!!:

So, another for the collection. Photoed by me the day before yesterday, from the Rooftop of John Lewis.

I don’t generally do Photoshop(clone)ing, but some rotation was necessary with this one. In my original, the crane was completely vertical. And everything else: not.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog