Some recent-ish stuff.
Remembrance Day – 12th Nov. ’06
I visited the Field of Remembrance at Westminster, where all the soldiers who died have a little cross in their memory.
During the 2 minute silence at 11am
A trip to Westminster would not be complete without seeing Brian Haw.
I approached him to say hello and I saw his eyes were closed and he was clearly having a moment to himself.
I took some shots with the EM as well – I’ll have to wait until my pictures are developed. Why does it always take me so long to finish off a damn roll of film! I’ve literally had that roll in there for 5 months.
Some random shots:
Mmm blueberry pie…
..taken using a macro lens – such an impressive lens that is. I seem to fall in love with every lens I get my hands on. By the way the lighting was provided by my mobile phone :D
A bit of camera perving..
and some more
..and even more.
I don’t know what my fascination is with cameras on other people. They probably make for boring pictures but I like them so there.
This dog was lying outside a pub – he/she didn’t budge at all, even when i crouched down in front of him/her
I was bored waiting at Balham Station for my train the other day and noticed the CCTV cameras. Londoners are captured on camera something like 300 times a day – more than in any other country.
Sometimes I feel like I spend my life waiting for trains – like today. It took me 2 hours to get to work because my usual overland train was cancelled, and the second one was delayed by 20 minutes, the Central line was shut, the Circle line wasn’t running in my direction, and the Northern line had severe delays. Ahh the joys of commuting. It took me longer to get from South London to East London than it would have done to get the train to Manchester.
Now if only I could take shots on the Tube during rush hour to capture miserable commuters..
A mammoth turned up in Trafalgar Square last week.
I had the 50mm on me which made it pretty difficult to get a good shot.
Anyway, the mammoth wasn’t spectacular like I’d heard it was meant to be. Apparently it was there to highlight the dangers of climate change.
Hmm. It was nothing like the Sultan’s elephant. Remember that?
Ahh memories. Now that was breathtaking – it was like something out of a fairytale. I hope it comes back next summer.
That’s all for now. More soon!
The final Indian chapter – a mish mash of pictures. All of my India shots were taken with a 18-55mm lens by the way.
Ashamed to say it, but we went to McDonald’s. What can I say.. I like their icecream! Also, people who say it’s not very cultural to go to McD’s are mistaken – just look at this menu.
I had a butterscotch icecream – we don’t even get that in the UK McD’s!
They don’t deliver in the UK either. Indians are lazier than I thought. This would probably be a hit in the states :P
Safety is a priority for Indian drivers
Really, it’s quite scary to see how they behave on the roads – there really is no concept of safety at all. There’d be families of four or five on one motorbike.
I love walking around at night – now I just need to learn how to take good night shots. Rule 1 – don’t try to use manual focus if you can’t see anything!
That shot could have come out so well if I hadn’t tried to focus manually. These kids were so happy to see us – they started dancing and singing (a dance festival was going on at the same time) and then they all ran in front of a statue of a god and posed for us. It was so lovely to see this kind of joy coming from street children. Oh, and you can’t see it but it was raining..
You can see it here though
A street shoe-repairer
When he saw me he just stood like this staring back at me. I always wonder if any of these ordinary street workers have ever had their picture taken before. I almost wish I could give a copy to every person I took a picture of.
An Indian security guard clearly doing his job!
He sits outside the appartment block that a friend lives in – she said he’s like that every night. I thought the click of my camera would wake him up, but nope.
There are quite a few churches in Mumbai
I had a conversation with someone who said more and more Indians are turning towards Christianity.
We walked past a group of people praying.
You can’t see it but there was a long queue of people waiting for their turn, being drenched in the rain.
I have no idea what these guys were cooking but it was delicious
It was like a pancake but even better.
This little girl was sitting in the street completely emotionless..she wouldn’t even look at us when we tried talking to her – she just sat crying. This struck me as odd; street kids in India always give attention to foreigners, but she wouldn’t budge.
Even when we gave her some sweets and money, she didn’t look at us once.
Took some pictures in a train station
That was until we were stopped by guards asking what media organisation I was from. DSLRs aren’t great for subtlety. They told us we couldn’t take pictures here – this was understandable. This particular station was Mahim Junction, one of the stations blown up by terrorists a few months ago.
As we left, one of the guards came running after us and asked if I could take a picture of him.
I’d love to go back and find him to give him this picture.
A cute little green rickshaw
I forgot to put this shot into my Haji Ali blog
I’ve never seen Muslims in purple before :o
No-male zone:
That’s the lot! I have heaps more (I took over 600 pictures) but many were personal pictures as well as experimental shots.
I want to post one last picture though..
This was hanging on my friend’s wall and I love it and what it stands for. I’ll let you figure out its symbolism.
Thanks for reading :)
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