Category
Creative
-
11.23.07Overheard at the bus stopOldish woman wearing a red coat, to another, with bulging handbag: 'Scuse me...I think I recognise you from somewhere. Can't think where, though.... Other woman: [smiles] Off the telly? Maybe? First woman: [cocks head on one side and pauses] No, that's not it... Second woman: I'm an Actor? In, um, Eastenders? [smiles at the other people in the bus stop, as if to indicate that this happens all the time] First woman: [studies the other woman for another moment] OH! I know! You look like that woman in the lamp shop down the road! Second woman: [looks confused] ... First woman: [reassuringly, smiling] ...it's the hair. Second ...
-
10.22.07Three tube sketchesShe's got new shoes. At the end of long, bare and goose-pimpled legs, they are conspicuously shiny and uncomfortable, and she does not know what to do with them. They are tucked together primly, her knees higher than she is used to. They are stretched out in front, swaying on the points of the heels. They are pigeon-positioned, with her tote bag between ankles. Her toes wiggle in their unfamiliar confines, and she finds herself sneaking glances at these new additions, admiringly, just as other commuters do the same to her. Trotters stuffed in phat-laced white adidas, with jeans suitably distressed ...
-
10.17.07Wish you were hereThose lovely people at MOO have done it again. Not content with merely providing the world with delightful, tactile objects of printy goodness in the form of minicards, stickers and notecards, they've just launched a new product - postcards (which I can't help calling POOstcards, natch). I got mine a bit early (thank you, MOOmins!) and even if they weren't made by my friends I would still tell you that the quality is marvellous, just like the minicards. Of course, now I'm busy cooking up creative uses for postcards because they're almost too nice to be sullied by stamps...
-
08.13.07Colour-shift conundrumI've noticed that the photos which I import from my camera into Adobe Lightroom, tweak and then export, look completely different when I look at them on Flickr. I realised, in fact, that the slightly washed-out look is something to do with Firefox, rather than Flickr, because the same images in Safari retain the colours from the Lightroom versions. Here's an example of an image from that Girly One-Track photoshoot a while back, which I've loaded in both browsers, Firefox on the left and Safari on the right - the line down the middle is the OSX window shadow, because the Safari ...
-
07.07.07Girl next doorI've noticed quite a few searches recently on this site by people looking for info about Girl With a One-Track Mind. I *think* this is because Fridaycities recently published an interview with her, illustrated by a photo I took. So, in the interests of disclosure: Girly One-Track is a friend of mine, and in April she asked me to take a series of shots of her which could be used for publicity. I whisked her down to the South Bank (stark architecture, interesting textures, interesting location which establishes her as a confident, modern, urban woman), took about 300 shots and later whittled ...
-
06.07.07Now DepartingI got a new camera a while ago - a Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim, which is basically a toy camera, being feature and focus free and fashioned from cheapest moulded plastic. It's fun, though, and I've been pretty chuffed with the images I've got back from it so far, including this one I snapped of a train leaving the sidings at Hammersmith station the other day. Seemed somehow apt considering that they're about to demolish the Palais itself. (more toycam pics in this set)
-
05.27.07On How We AreI went along this afternoon to the How We Are: Photographing Britain exhibition at Tate Britain. Some observations:The gallery was rammed. I know it's a ticketed event, and that's supposed to mean that incomers are staggered to keep an even flow throughout the opening hours, but it was like being at Borough Market on a Saturday. Just loads of people shuffling around the perimeter of a series of big rooms. As a result, you didn't have time to linger in front of and particular images - just keep on moving along the human conveyor belt, lest the person behind you ...
-
05.18.07Giants on the moveBrowsing through Flickr this morning, I happened to spot this image in the photostream of one of my contacts, Victory Rose, who regularly posts delectable images from her hometown of Reykjavik, Iceland. [Want a bite?, originally uploaded by Victory Rose.] "Hang on," I thought "I've seen a similar kind of creative car vandalism on a giant scale before...." In fact, it was about this time last year: in early May 2006, Royal De Luxe visited London with their fabulous, free-ranging giant-puppet performance, The Sultan's Elephant, which wowed the city with its eerily realistic characters and hyper-real scale. Turns out that the giant puppets (and ...
-
04.30.07Summer is icumen in...Lhude sing cuckoo, and all that. While it may well only be the very end of April (for another hour and a bit), signs of summer are everywhere already, including some of my favourite things. Not least... The air is full of signs of life: pollen, little flies, smells of cooking and wafts of conversation. And Pickle wants to be outside. The first barbecues of the season are behind us - warm days giving way to not-quite-so-warm evenings; chilly nights spent huddled over glowing embers waiting for the sausages to be done. Blue feet glaring in sunlight for the first time in ages, ...
-
04.23.07Thinking of EnglandGiven that today is supposed to be the day that we all down tools and march up and down the high street in red and white, celebrating a turkish knight defeating a big lizard, I have been thinking about aspects of national identity, at least in part inspired by a couple of particularly resonant or pertinent (or both) bits of media. At some point during the last year, I read Kate Fox's interesting anthropological account of Englishness Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour (reviews on the Amazon site vary from "very insightful" to "utter drivel - clearly, YMMV.) ...
recent posts
- Historical Artifact
- Flying Ant Day 2008
- Breaking the news
- Being a list of potentially awkward social situations…
- When Commuters Start Using Umbrellas as Weapons, It’s Time To Leave Town
- Towards a universal theory of measurement
- Being a list of people who are annoying me today
-
Looking for the Anti-Valentines?
