Dublin, an MJ dancer, Tamils, a Fox, and a Fuck Off

A bit of a mish mash of pictures in this one – from no less than 4 different cameras

I’ve been forgetting to post these images I took on Seamus‘s Leica M6 in Dublin, some time last year..

Tri-X 400

Nice work cutting the head off above, eh.

Taken with another one of Seamus’s cameras – Hasselblad XPan I think. Shooting panoramic is quite interesting but also very strange. I think having so many more features/subjects in a picture makes it a lot harder to compose.

To my trusted digi now. Autofocus, yay.

A few months ago (December to be precise so 7 months ago!) in Trafalgar Square, I spotted this guy dancing and singing Michael Jackson tunes.  I’m not sure why I didn’t post these at the time.

I’d actually seen YouTube videos of him before – example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpRmrSYrwEA He’s got skills this guy has!

It makes me laugh when others walk past pretending they don’t notice such people.

This guy joined in, and pretty much upstaged him!

As you can see, he drew quite a crowd, but he hardly reacted to them. He just carried on dancing and singing in his own world.  I wonder how he reacted to MJ’s death and whether he still does his performances..hm.

Back to film, and this time the Nikon F3, with APX 100.

These pictures are from a few months ago, when the Tamil protests were taking place daily in Parliament Square.  They lasted a month I think.

These women were on hunger strike:

Their badges say “Stop Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka”.

Brian Haw, as some of you will know (I’ve mentioned him on a number of occasions) has been living in a tent in Parliament Square for the last 8 years, “to protest against the injustice and suffering caused to the people of Iraq by the UN economic sanctions and the bombing of the country by the US and UK“.

I’ve spoken to him many times and although his mood has often been of anger (towards the government), it has never been directed towards me, until now.

I simply asked him how he was (as I often do), and some other general questions, to which he replied “How do you think I am? You’ve asked me fucking stupid questions”.  He then told me to “Fuck off”.  OK Mr. Haw!  Great way of getting support behind you, and considering I’ve pledged his cause numerous times.. and even given him mince pies at Christmas : )

I suppose living in a tent for 8 years and receiving abuse from the public does that to you. He’s in the background in the above shot.  The man in focus was one of his aides, who quickly stepped in when he heard Brian swearing at me.

Back to digital and some more recent stuff.  East London:

A bit of a ‘fuck’ theme going on here.

Going to work at 6am, I came across a fox.

They’re common in the suburbs although generally they just run away as soon as they see someone, except this one just loitered around as I took some pictures.  I was glad I had my camera on me!

I wanted a bus to go by to take this shot but gave up after waiting for a minute.

Full-view to read:

The fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is open to one person every hour of the day until October to basically do whatever they want:

I’ve only been to Trafalgar Square twice since it started and seen nothing very interesting going on so far.

Peter Joseph (writer and director of the Zeitgeist Movie) came to London to give a talk on the Zeitgeist Movement, which was quite insightful, although I found some of the ideas to be a bit contradictory.  Still, it was very interesting and I’d recommend the movie to anyone who hasn’t already seen it.

A blurry Peter Joseph:

So, that’s all for now.  I have a lot of India pictures to go through still – I should really get them online soon!

As always, thanks for reading.  Comments are appreciated : )