Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length
― Robert Frost
This is my second interpretation of this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge – Corner (you can see my first interpretation here).
*Shot with Fujifilm X100F with fixed 23mm (35mm full frame equivalent) at ISO800, f/4 and 1/900s from the top of The Shard in London*
Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting
– Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance
for WordPress weekly photo challenge – Textures
*Image(s) shot with iPhone 6S and merged with Snapseed*
Those who were living now are dead
Those who were breathing are from the living earth fled.
If you want to see how the poor die, come see Grenfell Tower.
From the impassioned poem on the fire at Grenfell, by Nigerian writer, Ben Okri, whose poem, published in the Financial Times on 23 June, 2017 is a searing statement from which it is impossible to hide, impossible to avert one’s gaze, impossible to forget.
I wrote earlier this week about my arrival in London, on the red-eye from Lagos, and my efforts to both stay awake and entertained before being allowed to pass through the portal of my hotel.
I decided, after grabbing some breakfast, and scribbling a short poem, (which I published on Facebook), to walk along the South Bank to the Tate Modern. During my walk I found some inspiration by shooting the various vans being prepared for the hordes of tourists soon to fill the streets which at that time were still and relatively quiet.
What I hadn’t counted on was the degree of connectivity I felt with the things I saw and experienced that morning.
In Wetin You Go Do?
– Title of an installation at the Tate Modern, created by Nigerian born Otobong Nkanga
The title of Nkanga’s piece, when translated from Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based Creole language widely spoken across Nigeria, is ‘What are you going to do?’. ‘In Wetin You Go Do’ integrates voice and sculpture to reflect on contemporary anxieties.
The theme of anxiety stitched a ragged thread through the time I spent lingering in the Tate Modern after my early morning arrival in London. Or perhaps, when visiting a gallery such as this, the feelings we have, that we bring in through the door, colour the way we see the exhibits, determine the way we select what to linger with and what to pass on by?
Do you mean to tell me that you’re thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?
– Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
Back in August last year, I shared a series of photos of The Shard, shot with my Nikon D700 and Nikkor AF 80-200mm f/2.8 D lens.
Yesterday, equipped with my Fujifilm X100F with its fixed 23mm (35mm full frame equivalent), I made these images.
But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
– W B Yeats
I like to contribute to the weekly photo challenge hosted by WordPress and must confess I hadn’t quite found inspiration for this week’s prompt, which frankly is quite unusual for me, which seems apposite as this week’s theme was indeed unusual.
Having arrived at Heathrow this morning on a red-eye from Lagos, and finding myself unable to check in to my hotel for several hours, I took to the streets like any other self-respecting homeless person, by which I mean no disrespect to actual homeless persons, it is of course no laughing matter.
I had two main goals, one was to find breakfast (which I did, and I must have looked particularly hungry as an additional slice of bacon was added to my bacon roll and coffee), and the other, that was to walk along the South Bank to the Tate Modern. My plan being to spend six hours or so in quiet artistic contemplation, before the hotel would throw open its portals (or at least activate a smart card) to me and my battered luggage.
I also had the foresight to bring my camera with me, my Fujifilm X100F, which has now has become my constant travelling companion.
Any fact becomes important when it’s connected to another
― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum
behind the razor wire
behind the airlocked double gates
conscience, nurtured by truth
guardian, meet guardian
behind the rhetoric
behind the clamour
a bridge between my reality, and home
for WordPress weekly photo challenge – bridge
‘Call me (call me) on the line
Call me, call me any, anytime’Call me – Blondie
For WordPress weekly photo challenge – heritage
*Shot near Chiswick Park underground station, Fujifilm X100F with fixed 23mm lens at ISO200 , 1/400s and f/5.6*
Remember a time? A time before mobiles, the internet? Remember when the only way to call, was this?
andy townend 