This was not a good morning for commuting in London. Our already rammed to the rafters train closed the doors at Clapham Junction and then changed its mind. Oh good, more passengers (actually they transpired to be policeman) and then after leaving the station, we stopped, and then stay stopped. Deep breath, perhaps if I twist myself a little I can gain a few more millimetres of extra space and then maybe when the train moves I’ll be less likely to fall over. It is going to move isn't it?
The driver then announced that “they'd been an incident at Vauxhall” and then added “you will hear it on the news later, a helicopter has hit a crane”. That really didn't sound good! It took an age to crawl towards Vauxhall as we approached we strained to see the offending crane but the clouds seem unusually low. The train stopped just before the station and from our vantage point we could see a sea of blue lights and high-vis jackets. Below was a burnt out white van surrounded by hunks of what seemed like black twisted metal and just debris everywhere. Passengers were reaching for their phones and I had my camera round my neck as I'd hoped to be inspired on the journey to the station. But I stopped, what was I seeing? Could I be looking down at something so much more awful than bits of helicopter, for example someone's remains? The scene looked exactly like a still from ER, Casualty or any disaster movie. But TV dramas can desensitise us to reality and this was a bit too real. Normally the emergency services shield the publics’ eyes from anything too sensitive but with our birds’ eye view meant that we could be privy to something we shouldn't be. I just couldn't risk taking a photo and when I heard later of the fatalities I'm glad I didn't.
On the way home (by tube for obvious reasons) I was attracted to the bright, shiny new tube train and thought I'd remind myself how to do one of the tricks my camera does that is very much a Marmite photographic treatment - one point colour. I couldn't recall how to set the one colour and kept fiercely shooting the hand rails but all the other colours would remain. Eventually I resorted to checking the manual, oh of course, left arrow, point at desired colour, menu set, done! Fortunately I managed to drive the other passengers away with my strange photography, anyway none or them were wearing green so I wasn't interested in them.
Just after Christmas Nikon posted a picture on their Facebook page, obviously with the emphasis on yellow in their case, of two children in (yellow) wellingtons and raincoats standing on a dock staring at the little boats. And the basically asked “what type of photo looks best with this effect?” The outpouring of vitriolic comments and the odd “ooh it can be nice with wedding photography, with a single” was quite startling but one barbed comment that made me laugh was - “Every time a photographer uses selective colour, God kills a kitten. Please, think of the kittens.“ So, as a cat lover I have to say, “I'm really sorry about the kitten!"
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