It takes me roughly 45 to 90 minutes to get to most places in London from home, with a train journey into Waterloo and then on by bus or tube. Over the years I’ve become pretty good at working out routes using public transport, though it can be tricky when engineering works sometimes close down half the tube at weekends, or events on the street (often those I’m photographing) disrupt bus services. The Transport for London Journey Planner is often helpful as a starting point,but can’t be relied on to suggest best routes or give an accurate estimate of journey times.
But often I want to photograph several events at different places, and these are seldom arranged at particularly convenient times. Even I can’t be in two places at one time! So it means prioritising, and perhaps leaving one event before it finishes and arriving at another late – or not at all. Other days I’ll have finished one thing and be waiting perhaps an hour or two for a second event to photograph, so what do I do in these odd moments.
Well, if there are other photographers I know about, we often go to a pub – or less often to a cafe, which can be very pleasant. But I’ve never liked sitting on my own in such places. Sometimes I’ll fit in some other photography, perhaps visiting an interesting or changing area.
I often used to try some street photography, but my current Nikon digital is rather large and clunky for this, and I’ve yet to find a good digital alternative for the Leica or Minolta CLE (no, the M8 doesn’t hack it.) Of course I could keep on shooting film, but the hundred or so rolls I’ve already go waiting for processing puts me off it. So for the moment I’ve given that up, though in good light there are compact digitals that are worth considering.
So what I often do if I’m on my own is visit galleries. Of course there are some photography shows, but I also like to visit art galleries – such as the Tate, Tate Modern, the National Gallery etc, but also sometimes the commercial galleries. It helps to be a member of The Art Fund because this gets me free into some places and shows where I’d otherwise have to pay – and if I’ve only got a short time it seems hardly worth it, though fortunately most of London’s major galleries are free.
So, having taken enough pictures of the Ashura procession in rather poor light (not helped by getting the exposure wrong by mistake on some of them – my usual trouble with pressing things when I don’t mean to) I turned into Hyde Park and started by taking some pictures of one of my many favourite places in London, the Italian garden.
Then I walked on in the direction of the Serpentine Gallery, walking past sign after sign pinting me towards the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.
Princess Di never appealed to me and I kept away from all the popular outpouring following her death, and although I’d heard and read about the fountain I hadn’t bothered to go and see it, but since I wasn’t short of time I made the detour today.
Although many people had said some fairly rude things about the memorial when it was opened, I actually rather liked it. Perhaps the failing light on a dull cold day improves it, but I liked the feeling of a mountain stream when seen close too, and the overall view too was a pleasant surprise.
The show currently at the Serpentine Gallery, Indian Highway, (until 22 Feb) was also worth a visit, and for once some of the video, particularly Amar Kanwar’s eight-screen immersive video installation, The Lightning Testimonies, was really worth watching. But most of the work was enjoyable, if some of it perhaps a little too predictable, and I found the couple of photographic pieces of limited interest.
From there a short walk and a bus took me to Jubilee Place and the Michael Hoppen Gallery, which boasted a show, Secret City, by Robert Doisneau and Jason Langer (ending 20 Jan) along with another by Nobuyoshi Araki (ending 10 Jan.) Doisneau is one of my favourite photographers (I have quite a few) but there were only a couple of images by him I would have considered buying were I a rich man, and I’ve seen better prints of both. Langer’s work just seemed rather out of place in the company.
The Araki show I also found disappointing. Few of his ‘erotic’ images rise above the interest of dead meat and pairing them with giantly enlarged flowers does nothing to help. There has long been a market for ‘respectable’ pornography to decorate bourgeois walls but Fragonard did it rather better.
As often happens to me, by now I was running a little late and had to dash for the tube at South Kensington to take me up to my next event, the daily protest opposite the Israeli Embassy since the attack on Gaza began.
