St Patrick is under threat in Brent, as the local council looks for ways to make the massive cuts that the government is demanding, but I hope very much he can be saved. It’s perhaps hard to see why the annual parade there actually costs very much and I suspect more of the money goes on rather less essential things – perhaps paying performers at the festival. And while the security firm may be needed to comply with the council’s health and safety agenda it doesn’t in fact seem to serve any useful purpose other than supplying a little employment.
People were collecting signatures to get the council to reconsider axing this, along with most of the other community festivals they sponsor throughout the year, and I think it would be a great loss to see any of them go. But perhaps most – and rather surprisingly certainly the few they still intend to fund – could readily be largely if not entirely self-supported by the communities involved.
Photographically it was the kind of situation where most of the time I would have preferred to be working with a Leica. But I’m still not convinced it would be worth trading in my M8 and paying the ridiculous amount extra for the M9. Several of my friends now own them, but I’ve yet to see them getting the kind of results that justify the expense.
Perhaps part of the problem is that we now expect rather more from our cameras than in the old days, and having the name Leica on a camera isn’t enough. Leica just don’t seem to have the digital know-how or research budget to compete. So far neither of the major camera companies has come out with a non-DSLR large sensor model, and perhaps until they do we won’t have a truly state of the art market sector.
Meanwhile I’m waiting for my Fuji X100 and hoping it will be all it promises, though the recent events in Japan are going to hold things up. Fuji’s Taiwa-Cho factory, 20 miles from Sendai city, has been damaged, although fortunately none of the workers there are reported injured. But there has been a temporary halt in production of the FinePix X100, which is expected to result in a delay in the camera coming to market.
But back in Willesden Green, I was shooting as usual with the Nikon D700, along with the 16-35mm lens, and the D300 with the 18-105mm. And it was a beautiful day for March, the Guinness was flowing well and my only problem was that I had to rush away as soon as the parade was over to see my grand-daughter and her father, staying with us for a day.
More of the pictures at St Patrick’s Day – Brent on My London Diary.