Street Abstracts & Illusions featuring London Buses

When walking around London with a camera it becomes inevitable that at some point a red London bus will become part of the mise-en-scène. Mise-en-scène is a French term drawn used in theatre and film-making. In cinematography it refers to the arrangement of objects and people in front of the camera; with some directors this … Read more

Illusions in Kentish Town

Last night I was adding photographs to my Lightroom Catalogue and typed in the keywords facade, illusion and reflection. I then found myself singing a phrase from Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now – the phrase was it’s cloud illusions I recall. Apologies to Joni if I have misconstrued her text but it was an involuntary … Read more

It’s Raining/A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

It’s been particularly wet the last few days. One of the few positives for me is that it’s a photographic opportunity to capture the landscape from a different perspective.  A flooded section of Highgate West Hill conflates submerged signage and reflected nature and to me evokes a poetic and surreal street abstract. The word STOP, seen … Read more

Colourful and Painterly Reflections

I was in Kew Gardens on a sunny day last week and took a few pictures including this quasi-Impressionist image: I decided to look back over the last few months and see what other colourful, painterly reflections I’d photographed. I remembered a series I’d shot at Hyde Park; abstract patterns reminiscent of Op art resulting … Read more

Street Photography, Illusion and Tree Goddesses

Tree goddesses are usually associated with antiquity and are represented in a variety of cultures, for example Celtic tree deities, dryads in Greek mythology and  Kodama – Japanese spirits that inhabit trees. I’ve previously drawn together some images of People in Trees featuring actual people sitting in trees. This collection is different. I’ve noticed the juxtaposition of … Read more

Facades in Rome: old and new signs of culture

A few weeks ago I visited Rome after a gap of many years.  I had wanted to revisit for a while, especially after seeing contemporary films set in Rome by several of my favourite Italian directors: Nanni Moretti, Gianni di Grigorio and Paolo Sorrentino. I was immediately struck by the architecture and monumentality of Rome, but … Read more

Ways of seeing architecture

I was walking around the City of London yesterday, catching sight of The Shard from different angles and positions. Here’s an image I took of it’s partial reflection in an more geometric building: In the picture below, New York skyscrapers are reflected in a car bonnet: The next picture was taken at The Barbican earlier … Read more

Composition with pumps and found baguette

The other day I came across the controversial image of the Angel of the North sculpture with the baguette projected onto it as part of a supermarket advertising campaign. I found the image striking, surreal and sacrilegious… I must have been thinking about it as I came across one of my “objet trouvé” compositions also … Read more