Elina Cerla

After a hard afternoon yesterday, exploring Churchill and his wartime government’s subterranean lair, I was, in the evening, in no mood to do much else. But Christian Michel had one of his 6/20 evenings (yes I know, on the 5th (there was a reason but I have forgotten it)), and I forced myself to attend, knowing that I would not regret this. And I didn’t.

The highlight of my evening was undoubtedly getting to talk with an artist and art teacher by the name of Elina Cerla. We spoke about how we were both fascinated by the difference between how two eyed people see things, and how one eyed cameras, or camera-like gadgets used by artists, see things. Summary: very differently. Also about how she is more concerned to help people solve the artistic problems they consider important, rather than to shape them all into her preferred sort of artist.

She gave me her card before we went our separate ways, so I’m guessing she will have no problem with me linking you to that website.

You could become one of Elina Cerla’s pupils by doing what this says:

Having already wandered about in the website, I was particularly struck by that naked figure when I came across it elsewhere on the website, so I was intrigued later to find that she chose it to illustrate her teaching advert. I think you will agree that this image inspires confidence that the time of pupils will not be wasted. This is someone with definite skills to impart.

I am presently listening to this YouTube interview. Refreshing absence of art-speak bullshit and political infantilism, of the sort commonly emitted by those who practice (or who are attempting) shock-art.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

War and peace

Today me and GD2’s Dad, who will return to Brittany tomorrow, visited the Churchill War Rooms and the attached Churchill Museum, underneath Whitehall. Very good, and a lot bigger and more elaborate than we were expecting. A lot of time, trouble and expense has been passed, taken and spent on this show, with its tiny and insignificant looking entrance in King Charles Street, just off the right hand side of St James’s Park.

I took a ton of photos, most of which came out pretty well.

I was also out this evening, so I’ve time to present only one photo now:

I was fascinated by the war, of course, but also by the numerous items of peaceful technology that were also also needed to fight that war, like telephones, fire extinguishers, standard lamps, electric fans, chairs, and the three pin power sockets they used then. And the cooker, above.

A lot of these devices looked very familiar to me, me having been born in 1947, and the Cabinet War Rooms having the sort of kit that regular people often only got a bit later.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

BMdotcom mixed metaphor of the day

I just heard ITV News describe South African politician Jacob Zuma as being “mired in a whirlwind” of something or other. Controversy, or some such thing. Yes, this.

Next thing you know, he’ll be blown away by a swamp.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Yet more photoers

Yes, I don’t think I’ll ever get totally tired to taking photos of photoers, like the ones below, all taken during a recent walk with my friend Tony (who is GodDaughter2’s Dad) along Victoria Street, past Westminster Abbey and Parliament, and then on over the River and past the Wheel.

Lots of woolly hats and gloves and furry clothes, and hair. I especially like how the hair of the lady in 2.2 is lit up green, and also a bit of red.

Click and enjoy:

Seven smartphones. Two old school cameras, like my one. Smartphones have totally swallowed the dedicated-but-little camera market, although you do still see them around.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Quota urinal

Indeed:

At the top of the Shard, Aug 2017.

A terrific photo-op for someone with a really powerful zoom lens. (The sort that looks like a giant … never mind.)

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Pavlova dances on a sign and next to a clock

Once more I find myself at tomorrow morning, without a posting here. However, as luck would have it, I was photoing Pavlova today, my two favourites being this … :

… , and this:

The sign.

The clock.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Made up abbreviated words

I’ve often wondered about words like these, but Susie Dent explains:

You can be gruntled (satisfied), kempt (combed), couth (polite), ruthful (full of compassion), whelmed (capsized), and gorm-like (have an intelligent look about you). And, for a while in the 1600s, you could be shevelled too.

A commenter adds the words “chalant” and “consolate”, which were apparently first used in a New Yorker piece.

Also in that piece: “wieldy”, “descript”, “gainly”, “cognito”, “make bones about it”, “beknownst”, “it would be skin off my nose”, “both hide and hair”, “toward and heard-of behaviour”, “maculate”, “peccable”, “new hat”, “terminable”, “promptu”, “petuous”, “nomer”, “choate, “defatigable”, “committal”, and quite a few that I surely missed.

Immaculate and impeccable are odd ones. Does im at the front mean not? It’s not clear. Pressive? Pact? Mitate? Agination? Immiserate sounds the same as miserate. This can get very intricate. Although, you may think it to be not very tricate. Also, I hope you are being ritated rather than the more common negative of that.

“Indefatigable” could be shortened twice. Defatigable. Fatigable. Which means something very similar to indefatigable.

Timidate. Timate. Genious. Sipid. Cest. Ert and Ept, I’ve heard before. Nuendo. Finitesimal. Juriours,

For “over”, you could just put “der”.

I hope this posting has interested you. My apologies if, instead, you have been terested.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

A face and some windows

My friends Perry and Adriana now live a short walk away from South Kensington tube. I can now get to them in about half an hour, compared to over an hour when they lived way along and just off Kings Road, and a solid bus ride away from any tube station.

And just as good, every time I now visit them to collect the Amazon purchases that they receive for me, as I did today, I get to see one of my favourite statues in London, the one of Bela Bartok. When I walk past that, I know I’m going the right way.

Trouble is, when I go past Bartok, the sunlight usually arrives on his back, and I get a photo like this:

Nice windows. Shame about the face.

So, inspired by the example of 6k (see below), I cranked up my photoshopclone and redid the photo so that I could see what the face consisted of:

Nice face. Shame about the windows.

You could probably combine the two, and make it: nice face, nice windows. You. Not me. That kind of thing just does not interest me enough to want to know how to do it. I wanted to see the face and I did. Mission accomplished.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

My original version compared to 6k’s version

I like my photo:

But I also like what 6k has done with it:

So, which is better? There’s only one way to find out!

Compare the two by looking first at one, then the other, and back again, and so, until you are able to decide.

Did you think I was going to say they should fight each other? That would be ridiculous. Photos can’t fight other photos. (Nor is it wise to fight fire with fire. Just found out about that one.)

I think I prefer the 6k version. Which is why I shamelessly stole borrowed it for here. That big 2, bottom right, is much clearer. But, not sure about the greeny-yellowy colour. You decide.

Ain’t the internet amazing?

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The light and the lights on Blackfriars Bridge

This is the last of my postings about my walkabouts beyond Lower Marsh on Jan 5th and on Jan 18th, the three photos below having been taken on Jan 18th.

Just as on Jan 5th, the light was extraordinary. On Jan 5th, it was, for me, at its most extraordinary on Blackfriars Road, and then at Victoria Station (see the posting immediate below this one). On Jan 18th, at the same time of the day, it was at its most extraordinary when I was on Blackfriars road bridge, which is what Blackfriars Road turns into when it crosses the river. Blackfriars Bridge being the one next to the Blackfriars railway station bridge, as you can very clearly see here:

What we see there is the now nearly horizontal sunlight bashing in under the clouds overhead and picking out the bridge. Very dramatic. And just as on Jan 5th, the light was particularly good at picking out something painted red. On Jan 5th, it was a crane, the very same crane that we see in the above photo, in the distance, in front of 240 Blackfriars. On Jan 18th, it was Blackfriars road bridge itself.

The above photo captured the drama that I saw at the time. The next photo, taken moments before the one above, isn’t so dramatic. It felt very dramatic, but my photo captures little of the drama that I saw. The light that illluminated that scaffolding in the middle looked amazing. But I now have to point it out to you:

So, why this photo? Well, for my purposes, it does have one great merit, which is that it shows that the street lights, on the right of the road bridge as we look along it, were not switched on. Yet moments later, these lights were “switched on”, by the sun, just as similarly un-electrified lights in Victoria Station had been lit up by the sun on Jan 5th:

Behind these lights are the lower floors of One Blackfriars, now nearing completion.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog