Category: London

The last really fine day of 2018 (2): Scaffolding wrapped and unwrapped – and the Reichstag wrapped

I’ve asked it before and I’ll ask it again. Why do I regard most of Modern Art as silly, yet relish real world objects which resemble Modern Art? Objects like this:

The above photo was taken on The last really fine day of 2018, just minutes after I had taken the one in that earlier posting.

You don’t need to go to an exhibition of sloppily painted abstract art, when the regular world contains wondrous looking objects like that. And what is more, they are wondrous looking objects which have worthwhile purposes. This wondrous object is for supporting and protecting workers as they work on a building.

Here is how that same scaffolding looked, unwrapped, about a month earlier:

I particular enjoy how the sky changes colour, in my camera, when a big white Thing is inserted into the picture. (This afternoon, I encountered this, by Real Photographer Charlie Waite. Same effect.)

Thank you to the (to me) invaluable PhotoCat, for enabling me to crop both of the above photos in a way that makes them more alike in their scope and which thereby points up the differences. I’m talking about the invaluable Crop But Keep Proportions function that PhotoCat has, but which PhotoStudio (my regular Photoshop(clone)) 5.5 seems not to offer. (I would love to be contradicted on that subject.)

Despite all my grumblings about how silly most Modern Art is, I do nevertheless greatly like the way that this Big Thing (the Reichstag) looks in the pride-of-place photo featured in this BBC report, an effect which presumably makes use of the same sort of technology as we see in my photo, but on a vastly grander scale:

I have to admit that this is several orders of magnitude more impressive than my scaffolding. (Maybe that was the last really fine day of 1994.) My scaffolding looks lots better than some badly painted little abstract rectangle in an Art gallery, but it’s not nearly as effective as the Reichstag, as wrapped by Christo and Partner.

Because this Big Wrapped Thing was so very big, and because it is such a very interesting shape, it really does look like it added greatly to Berlin, in that summer of 1994. I entirely understand why all those people assembled to gaze at it. Had I been anywhere in the vicinity, I would have too. And had there been digital cameras then, I would have taken numerous photos, as would thousands of others. Thus giving permanence to this vast piece of temporariness.

Because, what I also like about this Reichstag wrapping is that, just like my scaffolding, and just like all the other wrapping done by Wrapper Christo and his Lady Sidekick, it is temporary. That BBC report calls it Pop-Up Art, and it is of the essence of its non-annoyingness that any particular piece of Pop-Up Art by Christo will soon be popping down again.

This Reichstag wrapping happened in 1994, but is now long gone. Did you disapprove of what Christo and his lady did to the Reichstag? You just had to wait it out. Soon, it would be be gone.

Do you think scaffolding, especially when wrapped, is ugly? Ditto.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Photoers from 2013: Varieties of facelessness

Photoer facelessness can be contrived in many ways, not least by the camera itself getting in the way. Then there’s photoing them from behind. Or having something else between their face and the camera photoing them. And of course there’s cropping.

Here’s another little clutch of not-then-posted but ready-to-go photoer photos, found when looking for something else. The guy holding up the red camera with two fingers, V-sign style, had already had the top of his face cropped off. But nothing further then happened.

My favourites, from the facelessness point of view, are the first photo and the last photo:

Burka Lady on the left looks like she had clocked me photoing her. But my guess is she and her friend were getting a lot of that.

Number 7, or 3.1, or bottom left or whatever we call her, is rather recognisable. But that interested me a lot. What is she doing with her two cameras? Trying to take identical photos, to compare her cameras? If so, I wonder how the phone did compared to the regular camera? Rather well, I’m guessing.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

One Blackfriars behind 240 Blackfriars

Three photos I took this afternoon, in quick succession, from a moving train:

Such photos seldom come out very well, what with all the movement and the reflections in the window. But these did, I think.

I remember thinking, when it became clear what these two Big Things were going to look like, that although each looked okay separately, that they would make a rather discordant pair. But as with almost all such Big London architectural eccentricities, I soon got used to this contrast, and now like it a lot.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Apartments on a bridge in Stockholm

That’s the plan anyway. Read about it in a Dezeen posting entitled Urban Nouveau wants to save Stockholm’s Gamla Lidingöbron bridge by building homes in it:

Urban Nouveau has designed the scheme in response to Lidingö Municipality’s plans to tear down the Gamla Lidingöbron bridge, which links the Swedish capital to the island of Lidingö, and replace it with a modern structure.

I like the sound of this, and the look of it:

Oh, sorry, no, that’s the old version of London Bridge. (I recommend having a browse of that full-size. (it’s 6144 x 1024.))

The thing is, a bridge, for all the grand vistas you can often see from it, can be a rather forbidding and even boring thing to walk across. It’s like walking along a huge boulevard. Sounds good, but too little changes as you progress. To make bridges pleasurable to walk across, you need stuff on them.

Which is why I am prejudiced in favour of this Stockhom scheme, even though what I know about it is only what I have skim-read about it in this one Dezeen posting.

There’s a Petition.

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

Rolleiflex (and Canon) man

A regular way I find good photos to stick up here is that I go looking for good photos, of one sort, and find good photos, of another sort. So it was this evening:

That’s a guy I photoed in Parliament Square in July of 2013, in the spot people use to photo Big Ben. He is using two cameras. One is a regular Canon SLR. But the other …? It’s a Rolleiflex, but have no idea which exact sort of Rolleiflex.

Apparently Rolleiflexes are TLR cameras. TLR equals twin lens reflex. So now I know all about Rolleiflexes.

The guy has French words on his shirt. Are Rolleiflexes particularly liked in France? Or is that just some idiot brand sold everywhere?

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

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