Yesterday, being ill made me think of food, because I wasn’t eating any food.
Today, what I am most feeling the lack of is body fitness. So, this:
Spotted by me in Stoke Newington last week.
As you can see, there’s a website. Interesting how she says that it’s a “sports industry”.
I assume that Lana wants to be noticed, or why would she should drive about in such a very noticeable vehicle?
I am ill. Not very ill. Just: ill. A symptom of which is not eating solid food. So here, to compensate me for not eating food, is a photo of some food which I ate in France in 2008:
I like squares and rectangles. Always have. So, I especially like the idea of eating something that is usually round but which has been made square.
One of the things explained in the article linked to in the previous posting is that product placement often happens in a quite subtle way, without the brand being spelt out clearly, for everyone to see. Street art adverts can be part of a campaign, and the street art bit only makes sense if you also notice the rest of that campaign.
So, for instance, is this, also spied in Bermondsey by me the day before yesterday, also some kind of advert?:
Maybe.
I googled “red chameleon” and found two books both called that, but no other products. No beer. No deodorant. No dating site for psycho-communists.
So, maybe it’s just a painting, of a red chameleon.
LATER: And it would appear that these are just flamingos:
I also saw them on my Stoke Newingtonian travels.
Both the flamingos and the red chameleon are, it would seem, the work of Frankie Strand. That she signed the chameleon was a clue. And a little googling got me to her particular fondness also for flamingos.
Christine Macdonald complains, in an article recently linked to by Arts and Letters Daily that:
Street Art Used To Be the Voice of the People. Now It’s the Voice of Advertisers.
Given what Ms MacDonald means by “the People” (the people who ruin all the places they get control of), this development is to be welcomed. Compared to ruination by a diverse array of people, all with the same ruinous opinions, advertisers trying only to sell you stuff are a breath of fresh air.
Here is an example of this process at work, spotted by me in Stoke Newington, the day before yesterday:
And here is another van from the same stable, which I spotted and photoed on the same day that I spotted and photoed these other exercises in profit seeking and actual people helping, nearer to the middle of London, while out and about a while back:
Vans like this are different, and thus attract attention. They certainly got mine. Many beer drinkers will surely have been persuaded to wonder what this particular beer tastes like. If it tastes like crap, advertising won’t save your product. But if the product is good but is being ignored, advertising is just what you want.
But, all you graffitists who have sold out or who would like to, be warned. Soon, this style will look rather ordinary, once lots of others have started doing it. At which point people like me won’t photo it any more, and commerce that is trying to attract attention will be on to the next aesthetic fad.
Looking out over the gloom of Bermondsey yesterday, with maximum zoom, from the balcony of a friend’s flat:
Despite the dreariness and consequent blurriness, you can clearly see the Big Olympic Thing there. Next to it, right behind the tower of the crane, you can also see, if you look a bit harder, the top of the London Stadium, now the home of West Ham United.
What this photo illustrates, among many other things, is the enormous contribution to a city made by Recognisable and Big Things. Most of what you see in that photo is dull Unless you are a craniac like me) and generic. You could be anywhere. But once you see that contorted red shape, however dimly, you know at once where you are looking and what you are looking at. These Things aren’t called “landmarks” for nothing. They are like giant squirts of solidified piss from God. They mark the landscape. They give it shape and structure. You know where you are with them, but without them, you don’t. Without them, you could be anywhere. With them, everywhere becomes somewhere.
Yes, I and a friend took a stroll around Stoke Newington this afternoon, and despite the drabness of the weather, spring was in the air.
And as if to confirm Spring will indeed be with us very soon, if it’s not here already, this was the scene outside the Anglo Spice Grill:
There were many other Stoke Newingtonian sights – animal, vegetable and mineral – to be seen and to be photoed, but today was a tiring day, with another activity in the evening before I finally got around to doing this. So that will have to be your lot.
Further evidence (see below) that vapour trail light is my favourite sort of light:
That photo was photoed by me in June 2008. In Quimper I think, but if not in Quimper, then somewhere close.
I had been browsing through the directory in which all my photos from that expedition are stored, and I was struck by how well the best of them came out, despite the fact that the camera I was using was quite antique compared to my current camera. I had always supposed that there had been a big jump in photo quality for me when I got my Lumix ZX150, which was a few years after that. Since that Lumix ZX150, I have had a Lumix ZX200, and now use a Lumix ZX330. All of those Lumixes (Lumes?) being much of a muchness. And I think that’s right, there was quite a jump. Nevertheless, earlier cameras of mine, when the light was really good, did just as well. Where they suffered, by comparison, was when the light was merely quite good.
Vapour trails are a feature of the Brittany sky. Basically, you’re talking about half of all the airplanes from Europe to America, and half of all the airplanes from America to Europe. So, in Brittany, if the weather is vapour trail weather, there will be vapour trails. A lot of vapour trails.
France also has excellent street clutter, with lots of wires. The wires go well with the vapour trails, I think.
Was out in Bermondsey today, and as usual photoed lots of photos. But the light was dreary, so here is a photo I took in the same place just under a month ago, on February 19th:
Vapour trail weather, which I love. And not just for the vapour trails. In such weather, everything looks good. Those two birds, for instance. They look very good.
Ah, the Summer of February 2019. They don’t make them like that any more, except that they just did.
Here are three photos I took, on May 21st of that year:
I vaguely recall refraining from showing them here (and there was indeed a here then) because I had no idea what was going on. I still have no idea what was going on. I should have asked more questions at the time.
Some kind of sporting event promotion perhaps?
That car park I wrote about got me noticing car reflections, again:
I think that’s worth top billing in a posting, instead of being an afterthought in a posting about a car park.
And just now, I came across this in the photo-archives, from May 2015:
Mmmm. Cranes.
And here, taken about one hour later, is a photo with St Paul’s Cathedral reflected in a roller. Too bad I was more interested in including the photoer, than I was in St Paul’s Cathedral reflected:
Or, was I? Here’s the next photo I took:
A car park, and a cathedral. They make a nice pair, don’t they?
More car reflections, this time of Piccadilly Circus adverts, recently featured at Mick Hartley‘s.