London Happens

New month, new colour! It was nice to get over the green themed photos of April. For some reason I found green a bit of an uninspiring colour, but I think I have some nice photos in the series. May means ORANGE, and I had some photos already waiting to be added to that series, so I added those on Flickr, along with some blue and purple photos in their own series as well while I was at it. Although the most exciting thing about starting a new theme yesterday was the fact that I got to borrow my friend Marianne's 5D! Seriously, I want to marry that camera.

I popped my 28-75mm lens on it yesterday as I went over to Tate Britain to see the amazing Peter Doig exhibition. Look at this wide angle goodness. Mmmm, wide angle! Actually, I went a bit wide angle mad yesterday, just because I could. :D


It's so great to be able to fit in everything in the frame, if you want.


Traffic rules of London. I got some nice photos for my run series yesterday, too.
It's been a while since people have been dashing around in my presence.
Or maybe it's only a summer thing, dashing?


I was standing again in this spot on the South Bank mesmerized by the power of wide angle. :D It's a nice spot actually for a great London background as well as for people going by. The afternoon was shadowed by rain showers, as you can see. I thought this was a nice green to orange transitional photo.


The South Bank book market is a great place to shelter from the showers.
Luckily she was also wearing orange. :)


This was my favourite photo from the day. I really, really am in love with this camera. Marianne might have to kill me for me to be able to give it back to her. :D I love the man in yellow in the background btw, it really makes this photo for me. ;)

London is the greatest city to get lost in. I got off at Moorgate last night and just started walking around in the City of London. It was a lovely night and in couple of hours I'd ended up via Fenchurch Street and Aldgate to the Tower of London by accident. Scrambling together more green photos I saw some great things...

There are a lot of nice details around you anywhere you go, just keep your eyes open.


One of my favourite photos from yesterday.
His expression is so lovely and infectious.


It seemed to be some national mobile phone loving day yesterday...


At least some had time to have a smoke before playing with their mobile. ;)


I hadn't been to the Tower of London for years. It's funny how things just look and feel familiar before you realise that you have been there before. Just after this photo Graham Norton turned that corner behind that family with his two dogs. I was a little bit star struck, but he was very cool about it (and on his mobile!). :)


Yes, The Tower Bridge. Very touristy. Very London.
But something I liked, especially in B&W.

It was a bit too good to be true to hit on the theme of the colour green in April. Everything is starting to blossom and bloom, thanks to the never ending showers. I felt a bit cheeky to be able to rub the theme in a bit more by taking a spin in Green Park here in London yesterday. At least it lives up to its name! :)

Actually it was a bit miserable when I first got out,
but in true British style I wasn't the only one trying to defeat the weather.

Sheltering away in front of the Ritz gave me some nice, dry, photo moments, too.
I really love how you can see the rain in this, especially hitting the ground.

By the time I got in a nice warm café to enjoy an afternoon coffee, and like these Dutch boys the people watching, the rain stopped and sun came out. I decided to take a little detour by the side streets and guess what, I ended up at Trafalgar Square.

I think with the South Bank this place is a bit of a photography safety zone for me! :D I haven't really recovered from my couple weeks break from street photography yet, so maybe starting in "easy" places is not such a bad idea.

Being in safe places doesn't stop me thinking in new concepts though.
This time I was trying to see things in more of a panorama way.
New points of view are always useful in trying to shake things up a bit.

Talk about another comfort zone: couples! ;)
I was interested in what was going on behind them in comparison to her facial expressions.
And these dots of red are lovely in this one I think.

And yes, more couples. Groups of couples to be exact.
Just loved the levels and positions of people in this one.
Couples to the left, trios to the right, please.

Apart from the park photos I got some other green things for my collection, too.
A great bonus was catching that family lost in the background. ;)

And this lady in front of the toilets trying to find her way.
Nice levels of action in this one, too I think.

This was just plain weird. This man stood here for several minutes just staring in the horizon.
People passed him, took photos of the square, a cleaner sweeped by, tourists bumped into him, and there he stood. Then all of a sudden in a quiet lull he snapped out of it, look at me and walked away. That's the beauty of London for you. :)

My favourite from today was this beautiful couple having words in the middle of the square. Lucky for me he was wearing this pullover, too. Couples in public are fascinating topic for me. It all started by accident, unconsciously, me photographing them, but now that I'm more aware of my pull for them I like catching those moments that "make" being with someone so special. His passiveness is excellent in this particular photo. A classic couple stereotype enacted right in front of my eyes. :)

So, it's been a while, but hello! I've had a little hiatus from photography for the past couple weeks (since I finished the colour pink actually). Today was the first time I got out with a sole purpose of taking some new photographs. Before I got to the South Bank I stopped over at the Hayward Gallery for some inspiration. It's the last weeks of the Alexander Rodchenko exhibition and I'm so glad I caught it. Very inspirational in especially angles and composition. Catch it if you can!


After filling up on the inspirational side I went down South Bank to try to catch green things for this months Project Rainbow theme. Feeling a bit overused and photographed about the whole South Bank I was trying to see if I could catch something "new" whilst I was there. I've always been a great fan of impressionistic photography, so I'm quite pleased how this angle turned out of the London Eye.


The light certainly was as changeable as in impressionistic paintings, hence a little overblow on the silver hair(s) in this one. But the ladies were the cutest thing in the queue to go around in the eye today.


There was a lot of kerfuffle going on due to the Olympic torch coming through this way tomorrow to London.
I loved to see the men of London hard at work, as always... ;)


Oh yes, I did take a photo of you and not the London Eye.
In the series of suspicious people (being right). :D


Best viewed large. This visual pun made me smile.


With Project Rainbow my intention originally was to concentrate on one colour at a time, but I've slipped a bit and taken shots in different colours when I've seen something interesting. I think there are already about ten blue photos, including this one, in my stash so I might as well add them to Flickr as well. :)


Like this one, too. Why join a tour group if you don't like what you hear? ;)

All and all it was a lovely, cultural morning for me today. Not having taken any photos for a while meant I felt a bit rusty again and I didn't take as many photos I would on average (good) day, but I hope you've enjoyed these. Spring is coming to London, the days are longer and I'm planning to spend more time with my camera in my hand in the next month, so watch this space. :)

Today I went out to the South Bank just to soak up the mild weather and to do some people watching. Photography seems to be a bit of a chore for me at the moment and I have noticed a shift in my aesthetic, which was quite obvious from how I approached things today. It was an especially hard day to extract anything greatly pink, and looking through my photos today there is actually more blue that I might use in the future for the project... but this is what I managed to catch today:


  Lots of people just enjoyed the day - and the weekend.


This included a lot of sitting around...


... even though your seat might have not been the most comfortable one.


But never we mind about that as long as you had ice cream. :)

I think this photo is a good example about that aesthetic I mentioned earlier.
There is something I am pushing myself towards.
I feel like questioning something although I'm not sure quite what it is myself yet.
Sometimes pictures like this open up to me more with time.


Part of that aesthetic is this new static approach to my surroundings.
Like in this place I was drawn to that diagonal line and was just waiting for something interesting to happen.
Luckily it was something pink. :)


Before the static approach I was already a big fan of this kind of low angle.
And she is so gorgeously suspicious in her neon pink shoes.
Rightly so! ;)


I'm also a big fan of unconscious synchronicity, like in this one.


But nothing beats capturing something like this...
More photos to be really proud of in 2008. :)

At the moment I am trying to decide if I want to get back to the darkroom a bit or whether to do a two-day conference/workshop in May. It's not really a case of one cancelling the other, but May seems to already be quite action packed for me, including some time to be spent in Finland (as I was getting incredibly home sick last week). :) I'm quite looking forward to catching some orange photos in Helsinki then as well. But there are three more pink photos to complete this months series, so until then!

It was an unusually early Sunday morning out for me. I went to have breakfast at Charing Cross Road today and from there I wandered around central London wondering when had spring managed to sneak up on us! Everything is starting to look more green and alive. Well, apart from me. I really am not a morning person. :D It was hard to get going with the photography today because of that reason, but I actually managed to get more pink photos than I thought.

At least my breakfast was a bit more wholesome than this. ;)
But it is Sunday and you're allowed to have special treats on Sundays, right?

Only in London. More than a zombie she looked more like that girl from the original Ringu movies.
Really cute and creepy at the same time. :D I really love how bizarre this scene is,
down to the car in the background and the reflection of her hand on the car window.

Family outing on the streets of Soho.
At least she is desensitising her daughter to the world we live in nowadays. ;)
Not a bad pink capture either...