Posts matching tags 'photos'
2008/5/6
This weekend, your humble correspondent went to the Cans Festival, a huge stencil art exhibition in a tunnel under the former Eurostar platforms of Waterloo Station. The festival organisers took the entire road tunnel and transformed it into a gallery, with artists from all over the world painting pieces (most involving stencilling, though a few being paste-ups) along its length. The most publicised name attached to the exhibition was, of course, Banksy, and he had a number of works there; as well as some stencils, he was responsible for a sitting-room installation with derelict sofas and an old piano made available to the public and a number of "remixed" classical statues. Though there were several dozen more artists, and indeed, anyone could come along, register and add their artwork to the exhibition. (On Saturday evening, a section of the passageway was sealed off from the general public and made available only to registered artists, who were busily adorning it with stencils.)
Anyway, here are a few photos; the entire set is here:
2008/1/28
Some eerie and surreal photos from Kolmanskop, a ghost town in Namibia, built during the diamond boom, abandoned by the 1950s, and since abandoned to the rising dunes:
Shortly after the drop in diamond sales after the First World War and the discovery of richer deposits further south at Oranjemund, the beginning of the end started. So within 40 years the town was born, flourished and then died. One day Kolmanskop’s sand-clearing squad failed to turn up, the ice-man stayed away, the school bell rang no more. During the 1950's the town was deserted and the dunes began to reclaim what was always theirs.
A couple of old buildings are still standing and some interiors like the theatre is still in very good condition, but the rest are crumbling ruins demolished from grandeur to ghost houses. One can explore the whole area within the fences and it creates the perfect set up for good photographic opportunities.
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2008/1/23
The Japan HDR Flickr group has, as the name suggests, some amazing
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2007/9/22
The BBC News site has some user-contributed photographs of odd signs:
(via BBC News) ¶ [no comments]
2007/1/24
I woke up this morning to find London covered with snow:
Not surprisingly, there were severe delays on the Tube.
2006/9/5
Someone has posted photos of Banksy's Paris Hilton CD, from a copy found in a HMV in Birmingham:
There's also a copy on eBay. Bidding is currently running at £250, with just under 10 days to go.
(via 
jwz) ¶ [no comments]
2006/8/8
Over the past few weeks, Dorothy Gambrell (who draws Cat and Girl, an amusing and thought-provoking web comic (though somehow that wasn't enough to get her into the Belle & Sebastian tribute graphic novel)) has been travelling on container ships across the Pacific, from San Francisco Bay to Tokyo, Osaka and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She has now returned and posted photographs:
2006/7/26
2006/6/18
Your humble correspondent is currently on the Continent, and hence blogging has been somewhat light. However, here are a few photographs from my journey so far, whilst passing through France:
The first thing one sees upon emerging at the French end of the Channel tunnel on the Eurostar:
A Paris Métro ticket repurposed into street art:
Early evening outside the Gare de l'Est, Paris.
Gare de l'Est, Paris:
The sleeper train to Zürich, Gare de l'Est, Paris:
My compartment for the night on the Paris-Zürich sleeper (2nd class):
View from corridor of sleeper car rushing through France:
2006/6/13
Seen on a kerb in West London, a discarded television:
The owners have thoughtfully taped the remote control to the top of the television, presumably so that they are not separated in the next world, and their restless ghosts don't haunt the rubbish dumps forevermore.
2006/5/25
Japanese War Tubas. I repeat, Japanese War Tubas:
Seen on this page. The war tubas look like a musical instrument (some kind of Dadaist/Futurist sound-art device, or perhaps a super-loud military-band instrument designed to strike terror into the hearts of enemies, much as bagpipes were), but they were actually devices for acoustically locating incoming aircraft. I wouldn't be surprised if the photograph in question has graced at least one CD of experimental music/noise-art.
(via The Athanasius Kircher Society) ¶ [no comments]
2006/5/8
This past weekend, Your Humble Narrator went to see The Sultan's Elephant, a series of fantastic street-theatre pieces put on by French street theatre group Royal De Luxe and involving enormous puppets on industrial cranes, teams of Liliputian puppeteers in red livery and a 40-foot robot elephant. Photos are here.
I took photos on two occasions: once using a digital SLR and once using my small compact camera (a Canon PowerShot A620). Oddly enough, more of the ones with the compact came out well, because, being behind a large crowd meant that the only way I could get a good shot was to hold the camera up over my head, and doing that, aiming is a lot easier with a fold-out LCD screen than using a SLR.
It's occasions like this that made me wish that someone would make a hybrid digital camera, which takes standard SLR lenses (like, say, the Canon EF ones) but is not a SLR, instead having a foldout screen like the PowerShot G series. This would give most of the advantages of a SLR, whilst making it possible to aim without having one's eye to the eyepiece.
2006/4/11
A gentleman in Italy has posted a set of photographs from Australia circa 1959, when he apparently lived there. The photos cover Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane as they were then, as well as scenic views which could have been taken yesterday:
It's quite fascinating to look through the photos and see those places, familiar yet different. Though the frames rendered on some of the photos are a bit distracting.
Interestingly enough, the author, one Peter Forster, seems to be a fan of the Nino Culotta books (a series of humorous books written in the 1950s by an Australian named John O'Grady, pretending to be the eponymous Italian immigrant to Australia and recounting the country's customs and morés through the eyes of a slightly naïve outsider).
(via Cos) ¶ [no comments]
2006/3/12
A few photos I took recently:
Reflections on the London Underground:
A walk along Regent Canal:
And an uncommonly pedantic piece of graffiti on a Microsoft Office ad:
2006/2/28
You may have already seen this, but if not: some gorgeous pictures of tiny people living their lives on various items of food. (set 1, set 2.)
They're apparently from a Franco-Japanese team, and appear to be titled "Mini-Miam", or so I've been able to glean from the Russian LiveJournal where the pictures have appeared.
(via make, gimbo) ¶ [no comments]
2006/2/17
Last night, I went to see Jens Lekman, the Swedish indie singer-songwriter, at Bush Hall. He was excellent.
There were two supports: the Bill Wells ensemble, and some chap named Richard Swift. The former (who are from Glasgow and have played with Belle & Sebastian) also doubled as Jens' backing band (and did a sterling job of it); in turn, Jens joined them on stage on various instruments during their set. They were quite good, in a jazzy sort of way. The Richard Swift outfit, however, seemed a bit too loud; their sound was distorted and harsh.
Shortly before 10, Jens came on with an acoustic guitar, and performed an unplugged acoustic version of Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa, segueing into an unrecorded older song titled Are Birthdays Happy? ("Are birthdays happy, or just a countdown to death?"), before being joined by the band (three women on brass, a drummer, and Bill Wells on piano). He played a few songs familiar to anyone who has his CDs, including good renditions of Black Cab, A Sweet Summer Night On Hammer Hill, You Are The Light By Which I Travel and a version of Maple Leaves with both English and Swedish lyrics, and a few other ones, which may have been newer, older or both; he sang and played bass, guitar and electric thumb piano, playing for about an hour.
Then, when the gig finished and everybody was turfed out of the hall by the management, he materialised behind the merchandise stall with an acoustic guitar and regaled the assembled punters with two songs, I Don't Know If She's Worth 900 Kronor and Tram #7 to Heaven.
This February so far has been a record-breaking month for gigs; in the past 2 weeks, I have seen what could well be three of the best gigs of 2006. Anyway, Jens Lekman is a class act in every sense, and those reading this in Melbourne should consider yourselves lucky to get to see him with Guy Blackman and part of Architecture In Helsinki as a backing band soon.
2006/2/12
This past Friday evening, I went to see Belle & Sebastian at the Hammersmith NME Carling Xfm Apollo or whatever it's called. Apparently (according to Stuart Murdoch), this was the very same historic venue at which David Bowie killed the Spiders from Mars.
The Belle & Sebastian gig last night was brillant; as good as the Brighton gig a week earlier. They started off with The State I'm In, and then went on to play songs including Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie, Dog On Wheels and She's Losing It; it was good to see that both Electronic Renaissance and Your Cover's Blown got onto the playlist; both of these work really well live. Oh, and Stuart went on wearing a school jacket, which suited him.
There was no cover this time and no guest singers, though there was audience participation aplenty.
After playing The Loneliness of the Middle-Distance Runner, Stuart paused and confided in the audience that he was wondering what 5,000 people whistling in unison would sound like; he then strummed the chords of the song whilst the assembled audience whistled its melody. (For the record, it sounded quite impressive.) At another time in the gig, Stuart noticed that some members of the audience had brought in tambourines and such and asked who else had brought in instruments. One audience member handed him a kazoo, which he proceeded to play, before throwing it back. At the end, they played Judy And The Dream Of Horses; Stuart didn't sing the first verse, but instead played guitar and let the audience do it; they rose to the occasion with gusto. Of course, it wasn't really the last song; there was an encore, in which one of the songs was Sleep The Clock Around, performed with a piano intro.
I managed to take some photos at the gig; they are here.
2006/2/4
Last night, Your Humble Narrator saw Belle & Sebastian at the Dome in Brighton.
The gig was excellent; as impressive as the Melbourne one*. They played a mixture of old and new songs, starting off the gig with Stars Of Track And Field. Stuart was particularly animated; other than dancing energetically, during a performance of Electronic Renaissance, he took to the railing that encircles the general-admission area of the Dome and did a circuit of it, singing into a wireless microphone. The audience was divided between those who turned to follow him, and those who watched the rest of the band on stage, including Stevie also singing. The version of Your Cover's Blown was also very groovy, and they did an impromptu live version of The Strokes' Last Night, which, whilst lacking somewhat in accuracy, more than made up for it in spirit.
I managed to get a camera into the venue, and took some photos. Alas, my batteries soon ran out (a pox on Canon's battery life indicator, which has only two settings: "everything's OK" and "about to die"). I took the remainder of the photos with my cameraphone, which turned out better than one would expect from a phone, though nowhere near proper camera quality. The photos are/will be here.
* except that the girl they got on stage for the encore didn't know the words to any songs, and stood there like a somewhat inebriated deer caught in headlights, singing the few fragments of The State I'm In she could remember. It was alright, though; the audience joined in to help her.
2006/2/1
It seems that someone somewhere decided that "Revoltec" would be a good name for a brand of computer peripherals:
Granted, they probably got the name from something like "Revolutionary Technology"; perhaps they neglected to run it past a native English speaker before going with it?
And then there's a brand of fizzy drink with a rather Jarryesque name:
2006/1/22
2005/12/27
Something I learned recently. Some time ago, there was an alarm clock on the market under the name "Time Cube":
Apparently it was made in Hong Kong, possibly by a company named "Dailymate", and had a world time display on the top. I wonder whether one of these clocks could have inspired Gene Ray, Cubic.
(via hazyjayne) ¶ [4 comments]
2005/11/27
Seen on the London Underground: this serendipitous juxtaposition of two advertising posters, one of them being for a best-of CD by chart-pop singer Anastacia:
2005/11/10
Ironic juxtaposition of the day:
On one side of a bus shelter in west London, the following iPod ad:
...and, on the obverse, the following message from the Home Office, warning iPod owners to avoid flaunting their white earphones as they attract muggers:
2005/10/31
Your Humble Narrator spent the past weekend in Manchester, visiting friends, catching the Architecture In Helsinki gig there, and seeing some of the sights.
Manchester appears to have an interesting stencil/paste-up art scene. There's even one artist whose thing seems to be gluing his canvases to walls/doorways, with "NOT FOR SALE" stickers underneath them (where, in a gallery, the price would go):
Apparently there's also a big electro-pop scene happening, continuing the Mancunian tradition of combining guitar-rock and dance electronics. There didn't seem to be anything of that sort happening on Saturday night though.
I did, however, see the Haçienda; or, rather, the Haçienda Apartments, a set of yuppie lifestyle apartments built on the site of FAC51, the famous club owned by Factory Records and New Order. Disappointingly, there did not seem to be a blue plaque anywhere on the building saying anything like "ON THIS SITE, THE FIRST DOSE OF ECSTASY IN BRITAIN WAS TAKEN (OR SO TONY WILSON WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE)"; the only testament to the site's significance is its name, stripped of concept and reduced to another couture marketing buzzword. (And it doesn't even look unusual, unlike North London's Visage apartments, which are apparently modelled on Steve Strange's hairstyle.)
There is one remaining venue connected with New Order in Manchester: the Dry Bar on Oldham St. Though forget about it; it's not remotely interesting. The interior looks like a suburban pub (or, to the Australians in the audience, like a RSL club), and apparently it's full of lagered-up chavs on most nights.
There is a lot else to see around the Oldham St. part of Manchester (which is sort of like Byres Road, Glasgow, or a more grungy Brunswick St., Melbourne). The ubiquitous sticker/paste-up art, for one. The shopping's quite good, especially for records (because it's not London, second-hand CD shops tend to have more interesting selections at more reasonable prices). I ended up taking back as many CDs as I could fit in my backpack (roughly 15).
Affleck's Palace is interesting enough, but, one gets the feeling that it's nowhere near what it used to be. Nowadays it contains mostly teen-rebellion paraphernalia of the same kind seen in Camden Market. The various retro shops nearby (including the Pop Boutique, which is more impressive than their London outpost) have, alongside the usual selection of jackets and jeans, quite a few 8-bit computers and vintage video game units. (One shop had a working Amstrad CPC464 on display next to the 1970s shirts and fondue sets.)
2005/10/22
Yesterday, Your Humble Narrator went to Banksy's latest exhibition, titled "Crude Oils". 
It was held in Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill, in a shop which had been transformed into a ruined art gallery for the duration of the exhibition. By this, I mean that it had been filled with props such as smashed artefacts and a skeleton in a security guard's uniform, and then populated with dozens of live rats, which were kept provided with pellets and water in shattered vases and such. Because of the rats (which, apparently, were borrowed from a film animal company and had probably appeared in any films, TV shows and commercials made in London recently and containing rats), the main part of the gallery was behind a plexiglass screen and one had to sign a disclaimer, promising not to bother the rats. Time inside the main part of the gallery was limited to five minutes per person.
The exhibition itself was quite entertaining, in characteristic Banksy fashion, consisting of various artworks "remixed" and updated for the grim meathook present, as seen through Banksy's cynical, kitchen-sink sensibility. There were romantic landscape paintings updated with police incident boards, CCTV cameras, submarines, vandalism and violence. A classical nude statue was covered in tattoos, and a bust wore a gimp mask. All the usual sort of thing, and enough to not disappoint any Banksy fan. Though the rats were the stars of the show, and their presence (which one could see, if not smell, all around) made the most striking impression.
The exhibition is open for two more days, 11am to 8pm. Meanwhile, my photos thereof are here.
2005/10/20
2005/8/8
There is an enormous writing desk on Hampstead Heath; it is there until the 9th of October:
More photos here.
2005/7/26
No, this blog isn't dead; Your Humble Narrator was away in Italy for the weekend, with limited internet access. On Thursday, I managed to dodge suicide bombers to get to the airport in time for the plane. Friday and part of Saturday I spent in Florence, managing to take quite a few photos (btw, that Hemingway chocolate place is as good as Cory says it is; particularly the Montezuma). I also visited a few other places; more photos to be posted.
Btw, seen on one of those scooter-trucks belonging to a maintenance firm in Florence:
2005/7/18
Seen recently at a North London railway station:
A chap in an olive-green shirt (not unlike those German army shirts, only without the flags on the sleeves). Both sides of the shirt was stencilled with a variety of slogans, in black, white, bright red, sky-blue and cyan, and a ransom-note array of fonts.
The slogans included "London", "Anarchy", "Gothic Dark", "I'm Cool", "Hell's Bells" and "I Pray For Sex".
2005/7/11
It looks like the OXO OVO graffiti may have made it to London:
(Seen in the underpass near Waterloo tube station:)
Then again, there aren't any cryptic slogans about literacy, religion or what have you, so it could be fake.