Day 114: tulip abstract

The first tulips I've spotted this year. I opt for an abstract as the tulips' environment isn't too photogenic.

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Day 331 : a Frui festive cheer

The Frui Christmas party was tonight and the social challenge aspect is normally missing from the party nights. Though there was an unexpected challenge tonight, find the pub location of the party when the invite had the correct postcode but the wrong pub name. When you copy these two bits of information into Google maps, Google favours the pub name so if you blindly follow the directions you end up in a totally different pub, a very nice pub, but a pub where the Frui party is not happening! It took a while to establish where I should be for the party and schlepping across town twice to find it did not put me in the finest of moods. I should know better because Frui has form when it comes to ambiguous and confusing directions. I'm hoping that their new assistant will add the attention to detail that Frui sometimes lack.

When I arrived the obligatory quiz had started so it took some time for me to get into it. Towards the end we were told to grab our iPhones and photograph “festive spirit” from around us. I figured I could do better and grab my Leica and close-up filters and head towards the Christmas tree in the corner of the pub. Festive spirit for me is sparkly fairy lights, shiny baubles and glitter. Sticking my camera into the depths of the Christmas tree seemed to be a way to get the effect I wanted. And of course my camera has a built in star filter for that extra touch of pizzaz and bling.

AL and I had coincidentally both decked our fingernails in a festive manner so she suggested I'd see if I could combine one of my penguins and her sparkly nails. It was tricky to get it to balance on the shiny curved surface but we did and entered it for the festive photograph judging. The Christmas tree picture fared better though, with an eight out of ten.

Much to my shock my cacophony shot did win the social prize alongside the infamous semi-naked policeman and AL’s hand of God recreation. CM took the holiday prize for one of his Mexican photos. I was flattered to win but I suspect it could have been Hobson’s choice!

 

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Day 318 : memories and taxi cabs

Tonight I'm off to Vauxhall to attend a reunion. There might be people there I haven't seen for 20+ years so it could be an interesting night. As my taxi wends through the city we notice the London Eye is all lit up in blues and reds, I don't know if it’s for Prince Charles’ big birthday but for whatever reason, it looks most striking tonight. I want to try and capture it but we can't get the angle without swerving in the traffic or doubling back, which I doubt want to do. I figure I've missed the moment so wonder about further inspiration.

Being in the back of a black cab and feeling all nostalgic with the Virgin reunion coming up, I have a sudden vivid flashback. When we took over the Smithers and Leigh store at Marble Arch it became a bit of an experimental Virgin Megastore. Smithers and Leigh hadn't really been in existence for very long but they had grand plans and a large abandoned shop. In Virgin @ Marble Arch we launched a NFL American football store, XS our cherry-picked accessories, a photo lab and were the second store in the country to introduce E.P.O.S. For those who missed this incredible evolution in retail, I'm referring to electronic point-of-sale i.e. scanning barcodes at the till.

Having the photo lab gave us a new group of creative people and it got me back into photography. I had my ’proper’ camera for a few years but had become a little disheartened. I was lucky we had such facilities as I could get cheap film processing and printing by people who were sympathetic to my extraordinarily variable efforts (i.e. technically challenged)! I used to hang out with a couple of the guys and occasionally used to stay either at A’s enviable Neal Street fabulous fifties flat with the spiral staircase and a parachute silk ceiling or P’s super trendy Hackney House inhibited by an artistic bunch who were at St. Martin’s College of Art (yes, very Pulp!). They had a old dentist chair in the lounge and had randomly and, clearly memorably, decorated the bathroom with kingfisher blue Hammerite! No-one in my immediate circle of friends had been so exotic and arty. One of the girls’ jobs, who sadly I cannot recall the name of, was to make giant models of everyday objects (for someone impressive, possibly for the BBC). Two of the boys were working on a film project. They'd procured a black cab and installed a camera in the back. The idea was to record little vignettes of the passengers. I'm sure this wasn't candid camera but they'd been searching for suitable candidates to make interesting little films. I'm pretty positive I never saw the completed work but I do recall sitting around with the artistically inspiring people, drinking wine and talking about how we were going to change the world. It took me many years to move from mere dabbling to an obsession with photography but I think my brush with all that creativity and vision possibly sowed the seed.

Tonight, so many years later, I'm in the back of a black cab, clutching my camera and decide I need to capture the moment. By playing around with focus I get some interesting bokeh with the lights of the surrounding traffic and street, a good vibrant memory! Maybe tonight will generate more!

 

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Day 293 : undercover!

I signed up for a workshop today to consider creating photographs that are a bit more commercial. To perhaps explore the stock sites and deliberate what would make our work more saleable .

We were due to meet last week but the rain got in the way. We were meeting in Cambridge Heath to give us a variety of scenarios we could exploit. I get there for what I thought was an 11am start and it transpires we’re not actually due to meet for another 2 1/2 hours. Well at least after the early rain, the sun is out and I have time for a very fine Eggs Benedict before wandering around with my camera.

When it is time to congregate, the café is way too popular so we decamp to the pub on the other side of the road and Lucie imparts some of her knowledge in the world of fine art stock photography. We peruse various book covers and album covers and discuss how we could produce similar images.

Firstly we return to the park to try out some moods, we start with spooky with a plan to move to happy. But the moment we start formulating our dark, brooding concept the heavens open and we’re in the midst of a proper rainstorm. We don't need to dream up gloomy scenarios, we’re in the middle of one.

We shelter under the Japanese pagoda and Lucie gamely jumps up and down both with and without an umbrella to help us with our “happy” portfolio. The slate grey skies are doing little to assuage our less than jolly temperament.

After being thwarted by noisy boys driving us crazy by letting balloons down we are handed our briefs and set forth to make magic in the persistent drizzle. I have a book cover for a tale about a rich family that aren't what they seem, with the nanny at the protagonist. Lucie suggests I go and check out some haughty dog statues and large ornate gates but they're not doing it for me. I grab a few shots of potential nannies pushing strollers in the continued rain but guess that could be very misconstrued.

I'm not really feeling my challenge I'd like to do something more prop based with maybe a fancy dummy and some pearls. I opt instead to look at some rosé thorns covered in rain drops. I think the single thorn is a stronger image but my renderings are not quite sharp as I'd like.

As we’re all walking along a baby’s red ball rolls into the road and gives us another opportunity for an abstract shot. It's been a day for food for thought and I'm definitely going to consider touting my wares on some stock sites and see if they bite.

 

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Day 289 : number ten with a bullet!

The Frui social group challenge is a bit esoteric this time. We have to dream up a band name and conceive an album cover for possibly their first musical offering to the world. Our group start thinking of reflections in puddles, a little abstract and little urban. We passed a tattoo parlour and were rather taken by the flashing red neon sign but decided to park it in favour of puddles. Surprisingly with the impressive rain today we’re not getting joy from the puddles at all. We’ve only got 30 minutes to complete the mission so we have to step it up. There's a wonderful vintage looking shop and we fire a few shots off with one of our team staring in the window wistfully. We espy another tattoo emporium and we try some close-ups of some of their impressive handiwork. A close up of an eye on a poster, a fire alarm, objects from window displays, parts of signage, nothing is really calling us. We’re heading back via the original tattoo place, I love the red sign and think we could use it.

We all take clean shots but as I am fixated on the lights (like a moth) I purposely focus on them to give a softer look. This finally looks like a potential album cover and I shoot more purposely off-focus to give it a grungier look. I'm the only one who can shoot in square frame and we’re convinced that would add the extra kick to our image.

On returning everyone agrees that this shot is a winner, but what about our name. We briefly toy with a revival of the early noughties Russian lesbian girl band, with DP as our manager (not wanting to play a lesbian) but we didn't think everyone would get the reference AK came up with a considerably better name of “ink.” (With the vital full stop) for our band name and a new indie-rock band is born. For the backstory we decide that this is our difficult first album and creative differences have already beset our efforts.

We scoped a covetable and rare ten for our efforts - whoop!

 

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Day 277 : bright lights, big city

It’s back to the London Photo Festival again, this time for the Click and Clique evening. It's much less crowded than the private viewing and it's easier to mingle with the other photographers and/or visitors. The crazy penguin-kidnapping Swedish C is here and we’ve much to catch up on including “what unearthly peril is my absent penguin in?” C from Cambridge has joined us and after checking out all that caught his eye suggested we retired to his hotel with the guides, scrutinise further and critique all the pieces.

Cambridge C is staying in one of the penthouse suites at One Aldwych. He has a great “apartment” with it’s own curiously stocked kitchen, gym, two bathrooms, bedroom, large lounging space, giant stone egg artwork and balcony plus table and chairs looking over the jostling London streets below. We are taken out to admire the view. I want to try and capture some of the lights from the traffic reflecting on a brushed metal wall. I'm frustrated with the number of seconds my camera demands so I just end up twirling it around impatiently. In the end I quite like the abstract results!

 

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Day 259 : off the rails

I was going to try and not mention the rain again but it’s making its presence very known today. But then there is a break in the deluge so instead I embrace the abstract nature of the rain splattered metal railing bisecting the underpass, outside of Waterloo station. On one side the black taxis are driving through the puddles and on the other side potential passengers rushing hither and thither. I opt for an upended 16:9 aspect (normally saved for panoramas) and black and white for that arty feel (not that there is much colour).

 

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Day 248 : a silken strand

I took my camera and close up filters into our little garden out back. I was taking photographs of these tiny white bell-shaped flowers, and the detail was great but seemingly like most things in this weird little place they look past their best, brown and crispy around the edges and definitely not photogenic. I'm not sure why this is such a challenging place to photograph, it just seems a place where flowers and plants come to die.

I looked around, trying to find something that was interesting and not so ugly and finally a few strands of a cobweb catches my eye. The sunshine is making the silk strands sparkle against the darkness of a sprawling bush and the brick wall behind. It made a curiously minimal, abstract image.

 

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Day 234 : normal for mini!

There’s a massive screen at the station scrolling through a collection of multicolour adverts and the odd news item. One catches my eye immediately, as I suspect is the exact intention. It’s the Mini ad. Since the reinvention of the Mini Cooper not only has the actual car been a triumph in design but the adverts, on billboards, in magazines on television have been innovative, quirky and definitely stylish.

There's a particular print ad that sticks in my memory though it’s many years ago. I can’t find any verification online so I’ll just have to trust my own recall.

This ad appeared in the Evening Standard magazine. On a full page there was a banana coloured mini with a black roof that's stopped because there’s been in an altercation between a lorry carrying bananas and another. On the road is a large empty cage, dented, with it’s door ajar. The copy says something about making a decision between assisting with rounding up the genetically engineered monkeys that have escaped or scooping up the bunches of bananas. A few pages later there is a fashion spread, clothes, accessories, which all seems perfectly usual. And then a few pages later is a repeat of the same spread but subtly different. Each image has got some monkey motif and the implication is that the monkeys have now taken over because the wrong decision was made.

Not sure how many Minis they sold on the back of it but it was clever and intelligent.

There was a Mini in my life once. It was never mine but I enjoyed many mini adventures in ’Baby Blue’. We used to buzz over to France where a certain speed-freak driver believed that he could race as fast as he liked on the autoroutes, and he'd never get any points. He certainly got away with when I knew him but I'm pretty sure you can be penalised on your UK licence, for transgressions in France. Minis were still pretty new in France when we used to drive round and round the Abbeyville roundabout and the advertising hoardings by the side would claim “Mini - objet de culte” which we rather liked. Mini Baby Blue lives somewhere else now, he wasn't really compatable with two children with his two doors and diminutive boot. I have fond memories though.

The “not normal” campaign has got me pondering, Mini are asking for our own “Mini not normal” submissions and I feel one coming on featuring a tiny yellow Mini and penguins!

 

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Day 226 : a splash of colour!

I'm walking towards King’s Cross station with the other J. I've never taken this route down Gray’s Inn Road so I'm having a good look around. There's a building that looks like an old hospital as the figure on the roof seems to be holding a caduceus that catches our eye. There are also some intriguing stone friezes but we can't discern the theme. The building is now a budget hotel, a Travelodge but surprisingly their branding is fairly subtle, a leafy tree obscuring the silvery logo.

The other J hadn't noticed it before so I'm determined to discover a little more about it. It transpires I was right about the caduceus but I'm wrong about the symbology. The sculpture with hand aloft clutching the golden caduceus is actually Mercury and all the other friezes depict communication - the blowing of the horn, the carrier pigeon being sent off to spread the word, the cherubs on the telegraph pole. All this was designed for Willings Advertising in 1910.

I'm glad the Travelodge people haven't covered all this classical ornamentation with gaudy signage, the temptation must have been strong!

Instead of photographing the Willings House, I'm drawn to the Barclays and more upmarket hotel Megaro hotel closer to the station. To enliven the exterior they've deployed some quite dramatic graffiti which apparently has provoked some controversy. Some feel that the architecture isn't enhanced by the vibrant abstract designs but I think it’s eye-catching and though I didn't immediately to do some banking or book a room but I certainly remembered it.

 

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Day 220 : track reflections

I've swapped the tube for the train again tonight and with the Piccadilly line being deeper than the District you're more likely to spot the tiny black mouse scuttling around. I quite fancied photographing these blind mice but they're wily tonight and staying out of of the range of my camera.

Instead I had to make do with the advertising posters opposite the platform reflecting an abstract pattern onto the shiny tracks.

 

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Day 200 : the last orchid standing

We’ve had a directive that the coat stands, the low-level cupboards and the plants have to go. Apparently the plants don't epitomise the modern, buzzing, thrusting office we’re trying to portray. However I’m not sure the offence the coat stands and cupboards dotted around the place have perpetrated. And it does beg the question what do we do with our coats when the weather turns inclement. But it's not our place to question why.

Just in case the orchids are also under the same execution order, I thought I'd record their final few hours. This one was fairly hidden anyway do I don't hold out much hope. I love the soft abstract image my close-up picture captured.

 

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Day 192 : on the tiles!

On the way to work this morning I was handed a flyer about photography workshops that piqued my interest. I checked out the Hairy Goat website on the bus and decided the daily mystery photography tour and monthly intermediate workshop warranted further investigation. Whilst browsing their website I saw a link to the e-book The Photographer’s Idea Book by Gilly Walker and decided to buy it, something to get the creative juices flowing can't be a bad thing. If like me you have an iPad, I’d heartily recommend it, though I haven't fathomed how to get the many useful links working yet in iBooks.

On flicking through it I randomly alighted on one suggestion. “Lock yourself in the bathroom -

You have to stay in the bathroom for 1 hour and all you’re allowed to do is take pictures. Once you’ve done the obvious things you’ll get thoroughly bored, but this is when you start to get creative.” After everyone had left, I grabbed my camera plus beloved close-up filters and went outside again in the sunshine but nothing really jumped out at me. On returning i recalled the suggestion and went exploring and discovered a bathroom at work I'd never visited before.

I didn't go for the hour, I had an appointment with a spreadsheet, but I tried to find half a dozen entirely different viewpoints. Firstly the intersection of the tiles and grouting caught my eye.

Then the rugged landscape of the edge of a toilet roll.

The edge of the frosted glass cubicle doors made a striking abstract.

Continuing with the sea-green theme, the plastic bottle housing the liquid hand wash caught my eye.

And then next to it, in the shadow of the chrome taps, a few bubbles left over from the soap.

On leaving the strengthened with wire glass panel on the door shot deliberately off-centre.

Well the first mission is complete, I wouldn't normally take my camera but it does show, inspiration can come from the unlikeliest of places.

 

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