Archive for March, 2018

Class War Levitation Squad

Saturday, March 31st, 2018

On the 21st October 1967, 50 years ago at the height of the anti-Vietnam War protests in the USA, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, together with Allen Ginsberg, the Fugs and others marched to stand around the Pentagon and chant ancient Aramaic exorcism rites in an ‘exorgasm’ which was intended to get it to “rise into the air, turn orange and vibrate until all evil emissions had fled.”

Ed Sanders of the Fugs had researched the event, drawn out a flier for those taking part explaining the “magic rite to exorcise the Spirits of murder, violence and creephood from the Pentagon“.

The 10 stages of the rite included the exorcism text:

In the name of the amulets of touching, seeing, groping, hearing and loving, we call upon the powers of the cosmos to protect our ceremonies in the name of Zeus, in the name of Anubis, god of the dead, in the name of all those killed because they do not comprehend, in the name of the lives of the soldiers in Vietnam who were killed because of a bad karma, in the name of sea-born Aphrodite, in the name of Magna Mater, in the name of Dionysus, Zagreus, Jesus, Yahweh, the unnamable, the quintessent finality of the Zoroastrian fire, in the name of Hermes, in the name of the Beak of Sok, in the name of scarab, in the name, in the name, in the name of the Tyrone Power Pound Cake Society in the Sky, in the name of Rah, Osiris, Horus, Nepta, Isis, in the name of the flowing living universe, in the name of the mouth of the river, we call upon the spirit to raise the Pentagon from its destiny and preserve it,

the  placing of love-articles and clothing – “beads, feathers, rock & roll records,books and the sacred Grope Relic” onto the Pentagon and ended with the chanting by all present of the peace mantra:

a-ri-ia-ad-da-li-is Dim-an-za sar-ri ka-si-i hu-u-e-hu-u-i-ia tap-pa-as-sa-it sar-ri ti-ia-mu hu-i-hu-i-ia”

The Yippies had actually applied for and were granted official permission to levitate the Pentagon, though some hard bargaining by the authorites led to a cutting of the permitted height rise from the original 300 ft down to a mere 3 ft.  Accounts by eye-witnesses of what actually happened differ, perhaps largely depending on what people had been smoking.

Class War‘s Ian Bone and shaman Jimmy Kunt (aka Adam Clifford) along with a few co-exorcists went to celebrate the anniversary by attempting similar feats of levitation at Kensington Town Hall and later outside the Daily Mail.

Adam called out the demons of councillors responsible for the disastrous fire at Grenfell Tower, including Nicholas Paget-Brown, Rock Feilding-Mellen & Elizabeth Campbell on the steps of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea town hall and attempted to raise it to over 70 metres into the air, shouting . “Out, demons, out! Out, demons, out!” and ignoring the pleas of the security officer on duty.

Unfortunately I failed to capture the decisive moment of the building in mid-air; afterwards Ian Bone repeated a well-known quote from 1967 “You mean you didn’t see it, man?”

The team went on to repeat the performance outside  Northcliffe House, the home of the Daily Mail, where they were met with greater belligerence from a small group of security staff, apparently terrified of the effect removing demons might have on editor Paul Dacre, or perhaps that it might scratch the Rolls-Royce outside, before leaving to refresh themselves after the spiritual ordeal in the nearby Prince of Wales.

It seemed a strange choice of pub, though perhaps Charles has done more to discredit the monarch than most.

Class War levitate the Daily Mail
Class War levitate Kensington Town Hall

______________________________________________________

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________

City Airport Docklands

Friday, March 30th, 2018


King George V Dock, 1984

Back in 1984 I got permission from the Port of London Authority to photograph inside the areas of the Royal Docks which they had closed down three years earlier. I’d been photographing around the edges of the docks occasionally over the past three years and needed to get inside to complete my project. A few pictures were shown and published from it over the years, and in 2013 published the book of the project on Blurb as ‘The Deserted Royals‘. Still available as either a reasonably priced PDF or expensive paperback, and there is a extensive preview on the Blurb page.

By the time I took the picture above, the public planning inquiry into a Docklands STOLport as a city centre air transport gateway on this site six miles from the centre of London had been going for around a month, though detailed planning permission was only granted in early 1986.  Work started immediately, and the first aircraft landed in May 1987, with the airport opening for business on 26 October 1987, though the Queen came and did the formal opening a few weeks later.

Like all airports it grew, and the promises made to the planning inquiry were soon forgotten. There are still some limitations on traffic there, but it is no longer used by the whispering turboprop STOL aircraft it was built for, but people close to the flightpath for miles around suffer from deafening jets which often seem to approach at lower heights than promised. The number of flights allowed has grown hugely over the years and in 2017 there were over 80,000 take-offs and landings – an average of around 220 per day. Fortunately there have been no crashes on approach or take-off but given the highly built-up areas around a major catastrophe remains likely.

I went to the airport with protesters from HACAN East, led by John Stewart, local residents who want their views on the airport and its future to be taken into consideration and are calling for no further expansion, no increase in air or noise pollution and for and end to the concentrated flight paths which have made life a misery for those under them.

They had planned a event to attract media attention rather than a confrontation with the airport, with a team dressed as bakers carrying a 30th birthday cake from the terminal entrance to the airport offices, though in the event only one local newspaper photographer and myself arrived to take pictures. HACAN want a constructive engagement with the airport, and City Airport’s Director of Public Affairs Liam McKay who met them stressed that the airport also wanted to be a good neighbour – though quite how possible that will be is questionable.  The airport owners – who now include a Canadian-led consortium and the Kuwait Investment Authority – will be rather more interested in increasing returns than the health, safety and sanity of East Londoners.

In a civilised gesture we were invited in for tea and coffee, and to share a slice of the birthday cake, though McKay refused my request to photograph him cutting it. It was good coffee and the cake was fine – and I hope the the City Airport office staff enjoyed the rest of it after we left.

30th Birthday cake for London City Airport

______________________________________________________

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________

 

Faces from the Forest

Thursday, March 29th, 2018

Guardians of the Forest, indigenous leaders from Latin America, Indonesia and Africa, came to London on their way to the COP23 UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn where they were to argue that the continuing maintenance of the forests by their indigenous inhabitants is vital in the fight against climate change, and that the clearance and devastation has to be stopped.

Their rally in Parliament Square commemorated the many who have lost their lives defending the forests against exploitation by mining companies, clearances for timber and agriculture such as the production of palm oil, much of it carried out by companies registered and listed in London. A few of those who have been killed for our profits were shown in photographs held up by some of the protesters, but most of the deaths over the years have gone unrecorded and, except by their families and tribes, unmourned.

Profit and “progress” has eliminated many who have stood in its way, usually with little thought and less conscience, seeking short-term gain for rich investors but ignoring the death and distress their activities cause.

But in the longer term it is not just the forests and the indigenous people who are suffering, as these forests are a vital part of our global life support system.  We need them and we need them to  be maintained sustainably. And while the exploiters are thoughtlessly destroying them, the people who live in them have hundreds or thousands of years of experience in living with them and keeping them alive – and are truly the ‘Guardians of the Forests’.

It was a privilege to meet these people and to photograph them. Here are a few pictures of their strong faces which so impressed me.

You can read more about the event at Guardians of the Forest – COP23.

______________________________________________________

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________

Homage to Catalonia

Wednesday, March 28th, 2018

Another Spanish Civil War appears now to be taking place, though fortunately at the moment rather less bloody than the last, though the repercussions of that and the repressive Franco regime are still at least in part behind the current unrest.

Without that history, the referendum in Catalonia would have not have stirred up the same problems. It might have been rather more like the Scottish vote here in the UK, raising some fairly bitter arguments and probably being won by dint of promises made by the government which turned out to be largely fairy stories.

In the end I suppose I’m not a great supporter of independence, whether for Scotland, Catalonia or for that matter the UK. Rather than proliferating countries I think we should be setting up more clearly federal structures, recognising our interdependence, devolving much more to regional authorities at every level of government, from country or even continent down to street level, setting up a truly participatory and democratic system. It’s clearly the solution for Syria too, with Rojava an inspiring model.

Spain seems to be sitting on top of a pressure cooker, managing to hold the lid down for the moment, but things inside are building up and it can’t be long until they explode, unless something fairly dramatic is done to ease the pressure.

There was a lot of anger and energy on display at this event where several hundred, mainly Spanish and many Catalan came together to wave flags and show their support for the Catalonian people, demanding the immediate release of Catalonians imprisoned for their political views and calling on the UK government to condemn the police violence against civilians who wanted to register their vote in the Catalan referendum.

It’s always the problem of how your pictures show what the event is about, both the issues and the feeling. Words – on banners, posters, placards – and actions, and particularly gestures and expressions are mainly what we have to tell the story.

March in Solidarity with Catalonia
______________________________________________________

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________

London 1978 – The Crescent Cafe

Tuesday, March 27th, 2018

Since the start of the year I’ve been making the occasional post of my pictures from the 1970s with some comments on my Facebook Page – though not quite as regularly as I did with my Hull photos for Hull2017, where I kept up daily posts for the whole of Hull’s year as UK City of Culture. I’m still posting the occasional set of images and comments to the Hull site, and all of the London pictures are on my more recent London Photographs site, which was put on hold for Hull’s year in the limelight.

A few of the pictures of London I have shared here earlier, but most are new, and where either pictures or comments have a particular photographic interest I’ll share them here too. The photographs will link if clicked to the London site where they appear a little larger. This is today’s image and comment:


Crescent Cafe, Crouch End Hill, Hornsey, Haringey, 1978
16r26: cafe, Haringey,

I didn’t go in the Crescent Cafe (they spelt it without an accent) but had it been open I might well have been tempted to hand over 7p for a cup of Tea, or even 17p on a Bacon Roll, though its unlikely I would have been hungry enough to deal with Egg + Bacon + Sausage + Toms, nor have been able to spare the 56p to pay for it. It seems nothing now, but money was  very tight for me then though that 7p would only be around 38p allowing for inflation, so still a bargain.

It was however probably the highly detailed menu on the blackboard that attracted my attention, along with the shiny aluminium of the urn and teapot. I’m not sure why it was closed. Perhaps it was a Saturday or Sunday, or, as it was taken in August, perhaps the owners were taking their annual holiday, but the place was clearly still normally in business.

I can’t remember either what had taken me to north London, but I suspect I may have been carrying a large orange box of Agfa Record Rapid, following a visit to “the Brovira Boys of Muswell Hill“, Peter Goldfield and Martin Reed, who imported this holy grail of photographic paper into the UK, and published in 1978 ‘The Goldfinger Craftbook For Creative Photography‘, now rather dated but available on-line. Later I got to know Peter, and wrote a short piece on my >Re:PHOTO blog when he died in 2009. Martin Reed went on to continue the work they started at Silverprint, for many years from 1984 in Southwark and still in business, though without Martin, in Poole and by mail order.

Record Rapid died so far as photographers were concerned around 1988, when Agfa were forced to re-formulate it without cadmium for health and safety reasons. Cadmium compounds are highly poisonous, and are still used in artists’ pigments, but while they are fixed on the surface of paintings, and thus safe unless artists licked their brushes, a considerable proportion ran off into the drains when photographic paper was processed, and their use was banned in most countries. Papers containing cadmium salts continued to be made in other countries for a few years but none achieved the properties of the old Record Rapid, and probably the closest approach to it now involves using some inkjet papers.

Peter Goldfield
The Goldfinger Craftbook For Creative Photography
Silverprint
_____________________________________________________

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________

Ripper ripoff

Monday, March 26th, 2018

Tower Hamlets Council have for some reason failed to take effective action against the so-called museum which shamefully exploits the horrific killing on young working class women on the streets of East London by ‘Jack the Ripper’, the name given by the press to the ghoulish serial killer who unspeakably mutilated the bodies of his victims, almost certainly  Montague John Druitt who drowned himself in the River Thames in early December 1888. Some of the ‘evidence’ that has kept controversy alive since the murders was manufactured by newspapermen for what was the first huge crime story to receive sensational tabloid-like coverage. The police appear to have considered the case closed after Druitt’s death and there were no further murders.

Class War have kept up the pressure on the ‘museum’ with periodic protests, supported by London Fourth Wave Feminists, while others seem to have given up.

The came to the protest behind the ‘Womens Death Brigade’ banner, bearing plastic inflatable hammers with which they symbolically attacked the facade and metal shutters which the council have found to be illegal but have not managed to remove. They tried to walk into the shop, but made no attempt to force their way in when they were refused entry.

A few minutes later police arrived and tried to persuade them that they should protest not outside the shop but on the other side of the road or somewhere where their protest would be entirely ineffectual. Unsurprisingly they declined to move.

The 4th Wave Feminists had come with cat masks and posters, and gave the kind of details that the museum neglects about what we know about the lives of the murdered women and why they were on the streets late at night.  Members of some families of the victims are still alive and we were read a condemnation from one of them of the voyeuristic exploitation of her relation in the displays.

A few customers pushed past the protesters to visit the shop, and others were escorted in and out by police, some looking a little shamefaced, others defiant. A few others looked at the protest and then walked away. One couple who came out while the protest was taking place told the protesters how poor they thought the exhibit was, and that it clearly did not live up to the publicity material that had brought them there.

There were relatively few customers considering that this was a Saturday afternoon, and it seems unlikely that this business is managing to cover its costs and I wonder why it is still persisting.

A police officer removed one of the Class War stickers from the glass window on the door and warned the protesters that putting stickers on the shop was ‘criminal damage’, although as he had just demonstrated they were readily removed and left no permanent damage. There were quite a few other stickers elsewhere on the frontage.

After an hour or so the protesters decided they had made their point and left for a nearby pub. They would return for a further protest in a few weeks time.

Class War return to Ripper “Museum”

______________________________________________________

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________

Another Cyclist Dies

Sunday, March 25th, 2018

Stop Killing Cyclists were at Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall to hold a vigil and protest for the latest cyclist to be killed by a heavy goods vehicle on London roads. The woman was knocked from her bike at the junction at the north end of Chelsea Bridge, where 36 recorded accidents took place last year, but no improvements have been made.

Kensington & Chelsea Council have resolutely opposed schemes for safer cycling in London and have built not a single metre of protected cycle lane in the borough, despite being one of the richest boroughs in London – they even gave wealthier residents some of their council tax back. The 36 year-old woman who was killed at Chelsea Bridge was the second cyclist killed by a HGV in the borough this year.

They are also of course the council responsible for making the Grenfell fire almost inevitable – and ensuring that when it took place so many of those in the tower would die, by cutting costs and deliberately modifying the building and surroundings to increase risk as well as frustrating proper safety inspections. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the wealthy councillors consider cyclists – and the residents of social housing – as some kind of inferior beings whose lives don’t much matter.

Usually Stop Killing Cyclists hold their vigils and die-ins on the road where cyclists are killed, blocking traffic for the duration of the die-in. Today was different, perhaps to emphasize that this was an accident largely down to the obstructive policy of Kensington & Chelsea Council towards providing safe cylcing infrastructure. The event took place on the large courtyard of the council offices, which are tucked away out of sight a few yards from the busy Kensington High St.

Fortunately the die-in happened fairly early in the event, while there was still a considerable amount of natural light at the end of a bright day, and my pictures of this are clear and the colour good. As at other die-ins, using the 16mm fish-eye enabled me to get a good overall impression. Even at full aperture the corners are almost pin sharp (they are softened slightly in the conversion to cylindrical perspective) and at f2.8 I was able to expose for 1/125 at ISO 2,200. It is a lens where there is relatively little point in stopping down – though for landscapes in good light I’d perhaps work at f5.6 – and depth of field is pretty incredible wide open.

Later it did get very dark in the courtyard, and I was working at ISO 6400 again with lenses at full aperture, though with the 28.0-200.0 mm this is only f3.5-5.6 depending on the focal length. The 18-35mm is only slightly faster at f3.5-4.5.

After the previous week’s problems with wandering fingers I kept a close eye on the aperture and shutter speed. This was a much easier event from that point of view with plenty of time and no rushing. But light was a problem, not mainly because there was so little of it, but because what there was was almost entirely a bright orange. It’s easy enough to vary the colour of the cast (and often hard to avoid) but impossible to remove it.

Cyclists Kensington Vigil & Die In

(more…)

Against Terrorism, but…

Saturday, March 24th, 2018

I tried to go to the rally organised by the Football Lads Alliance and Veterans Against Terrorism with an open mind, or at least one that would have been pleased to be able to show that some of the things people had said about them was untrue. I certainly don’t believe that the great majority of football supporters are racist or Islamophobic, and on my brief previous encounter with the FLA as they photographed themselves with club wreaths on London Bridge had found no evidence to show they were other than typical football fans.

Of course there had been some disturbing revelations, not least about the group’s founder John Meighan and his former record as a football hooligan, and there were sure to be some in the large crowd with racist views. And as I walked to the protest I passed a couple of pubs with people standing outside drinking, some of whom I recognised from protests by the EDL and other far right groups – and some who made it clear that they recognised me. But as I mingled with the crowd of several thousand on Park Lane I began to hope that such people were in a small minority.

But then came the speeches, and any such hopes were dashed. Not just by what the speakers themselves were saying, but by the reaction of the crowd, a large proportion of whom seemed to be spiritedly endorsing racist and Islamophobic sentiments. It came to a head with a vast eruption when the name of Diane Abbott was mentioned, and amid th huge noise I could clearly hear a loud voice behind me shouting “Rape Her!”.

I photographed them as they lined up ready to march, and then left, rejoining the march later as it neared Trafalgar Square. Here they were joined by a couple of hundred Gurkhas and their supporters for the final stretch down to Westminster Bridge where they were to lay wreaths.

Although protests and campaigns led to Gurkhas with more than 4 years service in the British Army being allowed to live in the UK those who retired before 1997 receive pensions under a special scheme for Gurkhas operated before then which are only around a third or a quarter of those of other army veterans, and live in poverty. They include many who served for long periods and wear the decorations they were awarded for gallantry. A small amount of support in providing affordable homes was announced in 2015, together with larger measures for those remaining in Nepal, but many in the UK are still being treated very shabbily, and their cause attracts a high degree of public support, but has failed to move the Tory government.

For a few yards the Gurkhas headed the march, but were soon overtaken as it went down Whitehall. A small group of anti-racist protesters were waiting for them opposite Downing St, handing out leaflets. Although they had been at some lengths to point out that this was not a counter-demonstration, and the leaflet was asking questions about the organisation and how it intended to ensure that it stood up to the principles it had itself announced, many on the march reacted angrily.

Although a few took the leaflets and walked along quietly reading it, others snatched the fliers from the hands of those handing them out and scattered them, or took leaflets simply to tear them up in the faces of those distributing them, others shouted in rage, and a few made to attack the anti-racists, but were restrained by police who were standing alongside those handing the leaflets out.

One woman came across to shout at me, accusing me of calling her and the FLA and racist. Which I hadn’t done and was just there recording the event, taking photographs. Some of the FLA and Veterans Against Terrorism came to try and stop the abuse and to move people on – the end of the march had come to a halt. Finally police reinforcements arrived and pushed the crowd on and they slowly moved away. I watched from a distance as around a thousand made it to Westminster Bridge for the wreath-laying, though by this time rather more had disappeared. I sat eating a sandwich in Parliament Square with a large group of them around me discussing noisily what they should do; some were clearly upset by the way things had gone and were complaining about the way they felt the movement was being dominated by extremists.

Certainly not all of those at the rally and march are racists, not all are Islamophobic. But it does seem clear that there is a core of racists and Islamophobes at the centre of the organisation, including many with previous form in ultra-right organisations including the EDL and the National Front. And it is also clear that the kind of simple solutions that some of the speakers proposed are unworkable, breach every concept of human and civil rights and would have truly disastrous results for our society. There simply are no simple solutions and you have to be simple or dangerously duplicitous to propose them.

Football Lads Alliance Rally
Football Lads Alliance March
Stand Up To Racism and the FLA

(more…)

Stopping London Traffic Pollution

Friday, March 23rd, 2018

Every Saturday evening in my youth the BBC Home Service broadcast the radio programme ‘In Town Tonight’, introduced by the music of the Knightsbridge March by Eric Coates and traffic noise, halted by a loud shout ‘Stop!’ and the radio announcer’s voice “Once more we stop the mighty roar of London’s traffic …” It carried on, even becoming a TV show for a few years, an early chat show with celebrities and the odd and occasionally interesting rather random outside broadcast segment, most famously on a night spent in the waxworks Chamber of Horrors by Brian Johnston.

Memories of this and the comfortable fug as our family sat around the radio and a coal fire in our cramped living room came back to me as ‘Stop Killing Londoners‘ again stopped that mighty roar, if a little less dramatically, first at Oxford Circus, by stepping out with banners when the traffic was halted at the lights, in the sixth of their brief protests to highlight the thousands of premature deaths each year caused by air pollution in the city, largely by oxides of nitrogen and minute particulates from traffic. Official figures put the number of such deaths at very close to 10,000 deaths a year, and of course many more suffer greatly from illnesses caused or exacerbated by the polluted air, well above the legal limits for most pollutants.

Actions such as this are intended to force action from London’s Mayor and from TfL, who the protesters see as moving far too slowly and failing to confront those with vested interests, including London’s black cab drivers who are responsible for a surprisingly large amount both of the pollution and also the opposition to measures that tackle it, including the cycle superhighways. And until there is much greater public awareness of the problem, it is hard for the politicians to take more decisive action.

I’d met with the group on Oxford St around 6 pm, and as a photographer it was frustrating to see the light fading rapidly as we approached sunset and we were still waiting for more to arrive and the action to begin. It really was quite dark, and I wasn’t too well prepared for it. I’m always very surprised by the low light levels in parts of busy streets even in the very centre of London.

Flash generally isn’t a good option in wide open spaces for overall lighting, as it falls off with the square of the distance, but it does enable you to pick out people and banners closest to the camera, as in the picture above. But I didn’t want it to remove the shadows from the main lighting which was coming from the headlights of the vehicles stopped well behind those holding the banner.  In some of the other pictures this is a little more obvious.

The effect of the light fall-off with distance from the flash becomes more of a problem when the main  subject is at an angle so that some parts of it are much closer to the camera and flash than others. I often try to lessen the problem by twisting the flash head to the side. The flash doesn’t  really cover the very wide angle of the 18mm used for the above picture, and by angling it away from the centre, in this case towards the left of the picture, puts the closer figure into the area where the light is falling off.  But still considerable burning of the closer part of the image and dodging of the further areas is called for in Lightroom.

It isn’t easy to remember to shift the flash head in the heat of the moment – and with these short protests I’m always very much aware that I do only have a very short time, and often – as on this occasion, rush around taking pictures and getting things wrong.  It’s easy to turn the flash head to the left for one picture and then forget to put it back when it really should be head on.

But my main problem in the heat of the moment was, as usual, my straying fingers.  Quite how I managed to turn the control dial and change the shutter speed from the 1/250th selected to stop motion as the protesters moved into position through 1/500th, 1/1000th, 1/2000th and even to 1/4000th before I finally noticed I had a problem is hard to fathom.  Though the problem was far less noticeable on the camera back then when I was later looking at them larger on the computer.  The above image was made on the D750 at 1/2500s, f/3.5, ISO 6,400 and is at least 4 stops under-exposed, probably rather more.

The grainy image and odd, low saturation colour actually result in a certain gritty attraction, though not one that I was aiming for – and certainly one that required rather more processing in Lightroom than I like or usually allow. At extreme underexposure the darker areas of images acquire an odd purplish colour which needs careful tinting to eliminate. Quite a few images were impossible to salvage from the gloom, and I only had time to take a few pictures as by the time I realised my error the protest was drawing to an end.

The difference in image quality is pretty dramatic, even viewed in these small web images, and I tried to retake a few of the earlier pictures, but time was very short. I did have plenty of time to reflect on my mistakes as I walked down Regent Street with the protesters to Piccadilly Circus, and here I managed to keep my errant fingers a little better under control, at least for the first part of the protest.

Although it was later, it helped too that Piccadilly Circus is generally rather better lit – here the bright lights of London are generally something of a reality. But, as you will see if you look at the images, by the end of the protest there, my fingers had wandered yet again, making me wonder if amputation is the only answer…

Stop Killing Londoners with traffic fumes

(more…)

More Hull Photos

Monday, March 19th, 2018

Today I’ve added another small batch of images to my Hull web site, Still Occupied – A View of Hull, which takes its name from a show at the Ferens Art Gallery in 1983 of almost 150 of my pictures, many of which are now on the site along with several hundred more.   The pictures were taken at a time when large areas of the city were being demolished, and I came ‘Still Occupied’ written large three times across the windows and doors of a closed shop on Argyle St.

Now that I am no longer posting a new image every day with my comments on Facebook, I have begun to add the comments to the web site below the pictures. Comments and corrections are still welcome here on >Re:PHOTO. As usual, clicking on any of the images will take you to the relevant page on the web site where the images are presented a little larger.



85-10n-21: Island Wharf, sheds west of Humber Dock Basin looking towards town centre, 1985 – Old Town

By 1985 Hull marina was full of boats and you can see at the right of the picture some of the buildings in the city centre through a forest of masts.

The remaining warehouses of Railway Dock appear over the roof of a rather basic shed in the centre of the picture, part of which has collapsed and at left are the ends of a couple of lorries parked in this area to the west of Humber Dock Basin, which I think was part of Island Wharf.

This area is very different now, with the modern office blocks of Humber Quays, including the World Trade Centre Hull & Humber which opened in 2008 in the building completed in 2007.


85-10n-22: Humber Dock entrance lock, 1985 – Old Town

The Humber Dock entrance lock still I think looks much as it did when I took this picture in 1985, not long after the marina had opened in 1983. Most of the more distant buildings are still there, though their use has changed.


85-10n-23: Sam & Joe at Humber Dock Basin, 1985- Old Town

My elder son sits and looks at me with one eye as his younger brother faces away from me. Both have the hoods on their jackets up, as the area on the edge of Humber Dock Basin is open to the Humber and often cold and windy, as it was on this October day.

Humber Dock, Swing Bridge and Lock were all Grade II listed in 1970.


85-10n-33: Building for sale, Lime St, 1985 – River Hull

This building, for sale in 1985, is now a large shed from John Brockelsby Metal Management Ltd. It has a similar size and overall size as the earlier concrete structure, which could possibly be present under the cladding.


85-10n-34: 69 Lime St, 1985 – River Hull

It isn’t possible to read the name of the business at 69 Lime St when I took this picture, but from 1998 until 2012 when the company was struck off it was the registered office of Nitromorn Ltd, a car repair company. It was also the premises of A1 Bodycare a car body shop, which became a limited company as K C S Projects Ltd in 2012 but also operates under its former name at the same premises. The building also for some time was the office of the insurance compensation claims company Active Claim Services.

The building in the previous picture can be seen at the left of the picture.


85-10n-36: Island Wharf, lorry park west of Humber Dock Basin, 1985 – Old Town

Another picture of the area just to the west of Humber Dock Basin, much of which was, as this picture shows used as a lorry park. Taken a few yards away from a previous picture it includes the same pile of rubble, possibly bricks, and two of the lorries which can be seen in that image. It does give a clearer view of the Railway Dock Warehouses


85-10n-41: Former College Lodge, 44 Beverley Rd, 1985 – Beverley Rd

Still very recognisable on Beverley Rd when I walked along it last year. According to Pevsner

“No. 44, an unusual stuccoed cottage of c.1837 probably by H.F. Lockwood who was architect of Kingston College (Now Kingston Youth Centre) to the N. The cottage was originally single storey; it has a Gothic doorway to the ground floor but windows with Classical detail to the first floor. It was seemingly the college lodge. The Gothic stone gate-pier to the l. is identical to the pair at the present entrance to the Youth Centre.”

(more…)