LONDON GREYS (2009)

WHY IS LONDON SO GREY?

I guess this does not apply solely to London, but to a variety of British towns and cities – they are all constructed in grey tone.

Perhaps this is most noticable in London due to its immense size and the sheer number of buildings crammed into it.  I took this photo last time I was in London, eating lunch on some steps just opposite St James’ Park.

I have always been struck by the monotone look of the architecture and the inhabitants of our fair capital city.  Obviously the suit is the chosen uniform of the city and so a huge percentage of the population walk round in shades of black or grey - perhaps their tiee of if lucky, their shirt inserting an injection of colour.

But it all seems quite drab – more so on a winters day.  You can happily sit somewhere and be surrounded by different tones of grey, be passed by grey people and look up at the grey skies.

To its credit, London does OK for park spaces and tree lined streets – which give a welcome break from the singular vision.  Granted, you could argue the lights of Piccadilly are colourful – but really, that’s advertising and should never count.

Go to a city like Barcelona and you cannot escape colour.  The buildings are painted or even built in a wealth of colour.  Colourful public art fills the area and the people are an explosion of different shades.

Now of course there are exceptions to the rule in London or any other British city – but stop and look and you will notice how drab a lot of it can come accross.  Hannah often wears a variety of colours, more vibrant than the general populous of London and gets innumerable dirty looks for daring to splash some colour amongst the greys.

Is it that we are afraid to stand out or make our buildings shout out from their surroundings?

What I don’t get is that London is not a grey and drab place.  It has a huge personality and is filled with wonderfully creative and excetric people – perhaps we should begin to allow this to be reflected in our personal appearance and that of our architecture.

BLACK & WHITE PRINTING

Incidentally…

Not sure why you want to know this or there will be any interest, but you know – this is a blog, an online sketch book, some I am going to tell you anyway…

This is the first black and white print I have made in a long while – hence its not that well printed!  During the dark days (when my digital lens smashed), I returned to 35mm and shot some Black and White as I knew I could process and print it at work.

So, over the past month or so, I have processed a few of those films and done contact sheets.  Yesterday, I was trying to re-align and enlarger and thought it was the perfect chance to print one of the images to test the focus was even on the enlarger.  So here it is, for all to see!

I must say, it was great to work in the darkroom again.  Not done much of it in the past few years and its always a pleasure to have the smell of chemicals around you and be bathed in nothing but red light. (Does that sound perverted!?!?).

LETS TALK MORE ABOUT BLACK AND WHITE

Shall we?  Do you want to?

I am not sure I do – perhaps another few posts should be dedicated to this topic.

But to tease you – I am really not sure its for me these days.  I like the printing and all, but the results are never as pleasing to me as colour.  I do like Black & White street photography, but the world is in colour and that’s how I like to capture it…generally.

Perhaps I will address the B&W v Colour issue in more depth soon.  Perhaps not.

New England Quarter Scaffolding, Brighton (2009)

I am a massive fan of Car Boots – both buying and selling, they are an ideal way to start a Sunday!

Brighton’s Sunday Market has been held at the railway station car park for 27 years and is generally considered to be one of the best markets in the area.  It’s been a regular activity of mine since moving to Brighton as was held every week…in almost any weather conditions!

However, in the past year or so, the market has been happening less and less frequently.  This change occurred suspiciously around the same time the massive development of the New England area of Brighton began.  At first, after the new station car park was built, the market continued to flourish.  However, it then began to be cancelled due to engineering works on the railway lines.

Southern Rail claim it is because the market’s traffic causes problems for their replacement rail bus service.  Plausible I guess.

However – I can’t help being suspicious that this all coincides with the majority of the New England development has been complete – with hundreds of new homes, flats and a massive Jury’s Inn hotel – all of which overlook the market.  I cannot imagine the hotel management enjoy their ‘guests’ being disturbed by the 5am set up, let alone the new residents of the area.

A few days ago, I noticed a headline in the local paper stating the market was moving to the Marina car park as of next week.  This is a massive disappointment.  The station location was perfectly central and gave way to a good boot sale rummage followed by a fry up in town!  The Marina site will mean its a drive away and they have to have the site cleared by 12pm.

Anyway, wanting to mark the last week the market would happen at the station, I went along yesterday (12th April 2009) to pay my respects.  Sadly – I came home empty handed…but was pleased to hear many of the traders were keen to try and make the market work at the new location.  Time will tell I guess.

I took a few images of the last remaining building site, which is apparently a load of Eco-homes.  I will confess I am slightly obsessed with building sites and particularly cranes.  I find it hard to pass one without having a good look and taking a few pictures.  Not sure what the appeal is – a child like excitement of heavy machinery and hard hats perhaps!

It also reminded me of a few snap shots I took whilst in Marrakech a couple of years ago – where the building sites were a remarked contrast to the ones I find in the UK.

Building site, Marrakech (2005)

Wooden Scaffolding, Marrakech (2005)

Click the images for a bigger view as the scaffolding is truly amazing!  Rather rickety and bent looking logs are basically holding the building up!  That’s proper building, I wish sites in the UK would adopt this far more exciting method of construction!

The New England Quarter is a disturbing place.  As with much of the new development in Brighton – it lacks any form of character, appeal or continuity with the city.  They seem to have adopted the approach of so many UK towns, where they design buildings in a uniform fashion that results in them looking cheap and tacky.  The whole area feels like you have stepped into another town and could be any suburban location – characterless, featureless and intrusive.

New England Quarter (2009)