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25 February 2009

Back to Boot Scrapers – the Banished, the Buried and the Broken

Sounds like a great title for a film, eh?
Though I may be the only person who would be interested enough to go and see it...
Ah, boot scrapers... What should do with one if you don't get muddy boots? Should you ignore it in the hope it might go away? Should you block up its gaping mouth and disguise the embarrassment with paint? Should you leave it festering and lonely at the end of the garden? Perhaps you could bury it up to the blade in tiles or concrete? Or, as in one case here, if half of it breaks off, upset it further by flaunting a new one in front of it. But that may be better than just leaving it standing on one leg with not even a pot plant for company. Poor little things.
To see more of my boot scraper images please click here and here.

24 February 2009

Clock towers

This is an updated post:
Clock towers used to be the focal point of a village situated at a road junction or in front of a municipal building or railway station. As well as using them to tell the time of day people often chose them as a meeting place before a night out at the cinema, perhaps. There are some fine free-standing ones still around in London, plus a few on the top of some buildings and churches too. Some of them even tell the right time, even if only on one face.

Row 1: Angel; Highbury; Crouch End; Victoria
Row 2: Caledonian Market, Harlesden; Queen Mary University; Stockwell
Row3: Acton Town Hall; Leyton; Stepney Green; Lots Road

18 February 2009

My ears are burning

Today I checked my stats for this site to see who's been looking in and I noticed that a lot of recent hits were linked to The Dissident Café. I discovered this to be a Flickr discussion group where proper photographers swap ideas and observations and, in one particular thread, my images are being compared and contrasted with Malona's who also posts her pictures on Flickr. Anyway, here is the link to the discussion and it's rather interesting; be sure to read all the way to the end. Big thanks to Evis for starting the thread.

I also spotted that Evis had included in the stream my photo of me and Mark Kermode which was taken when I was at the filming of The Culture Show Kermode Awards last week. I was there because I had entered Mark's competition to write in to his blog and, in no more than 100 words, disagree with his view on any film. Well, Mr Kermode has been banging on about Slumdog Millionare too much lately, so I wrote that whilst I think it's a good film it's just not Oscar-worthy and is full of corny coincidences that even Dickens would have been embarrassed by. Amazingly, I won, beating 64 other entrants. Though I came away with nothing but sweaty palms and stomach cramps after being on camera. For those of you who saw it, I hope you have recovered by now.
For those of you who missed it, or for some weird reason want to see it again, here's an edited version of the show, put together by the lovely Mr Al Stride:

9 February 2009

Textures and patterns

Whilst I am out and about taking photos of interesting bits of ironwork and street signs, I occasionally stumble upon (walk into?!) an old wall, a dilapidated fence or a building that has lovely effects on it created by peeling paint, scuffed brickwork, torn posters and the like. To view these images individually and find out where each one was taken click here.