Finally, the sun came out

Wednesday, 17th of December, was a sunny day at last. Here are a few pictures from that day. All are from the Shoreditch, Hackney, Bethnal Green area.

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope 2009 will bring good and wonderful things!

The foundry of J. Hoyle & Son, est. 1880. The foundry master (?), the elder gentleman in the picture, cheerfully announced "I'm smiling!" as he came out with the younger guy just when I was taking a picture.

Winter day in Victoria Park

Regent's Canal

Alright, here are some assorted pictures along Regent's Canal. I only walked a short way of it, from Victoria Park to about Kingsland Road, a couple of kilometers I guess. Would be good to one day walk the entire length of the canal. Well, perhaps in the spring or summer.

Graffiti, graffiti everywhere. This just on the opposite shore when going to the canal past my hotel.

View through Canal bridges, taken on monday, the 15th December. I recall this bridge is the next one from that of Cambridge Heath Road, towards Islington (going to opposite direction from the Cambridge Heath Road bridge, you reach Victoria Park after half a mile). Pardon me for using such a terribly touristy expression, but I think there's something wonderfully quaint about that shop sign, "Ron's Eel and Shell Fish". I wonder if eels and shell fish make good business, or is the sign old, and the business since expanded to other types of fish?

A small canal lock further towards Islington, on monday. Unfortunately I didn't get any good, detailed pictures of the lock.

Cloudy day on the canal, on the way to Islington. The red building on the left is a school, I think.

A lifebuoy by the canal close to the school in the above picture. No doubt a necessary implement when you have a school so close to water.

Sleepy, misty morning on Regent's Canal (Victoria Park on the left), on tuesday, 16th of December.

More pictures

Well, I had the damnest luck: I woke up yesterday morning at 8 am with some kind of a virus: fever, throwing up, diarrhoea (I bet you all just needed to hear that, eh?). I stayed in bed the whole day, drinking this medicine which rehydrates the body and restores the minerals, fearing my Christmas would be ruined. But thankfully I'm feeling much better: the fever seems to be gone, I'm able to eat, though still feeling a bit weak.

Here's the next patch of pictures.

This is from one of the side streets of Brick Lane. The street address really shows the influence of immigrants, particularly from Bangladesh, in the area. I read somewhere that the percentage of Anglo-Saxon (hm, or Anglo-Norman? whatever) population here is about 39.

Written in blood. A very dramatic message in this painting, most likely expressing personal frustration or anger or sorrow. I wonder if the angel on the pedestal and the writing were done by the same person? If I remember correctly, this was on a street close to my hotel to the right: my hotel was Hackney Road 419-437, then take the street that goes towards north past the hotel on eastern side, skip east after one block, then again back north. This bit has industries and the gas works quite close and gets you to Regent's Canal after just some more steps.

Burned (?) parking meter (?) on Brick Lane

A shop, or possibly a tailor's?, near Brick Lane

Motorcycle repair and/or sale not too far from Brick Lane

Mosaic decoration in a building wall, again not too far from Brick Lane.

I think I'll post some pictures from Regent's Canal in the next patch.

Merry, warm Christmas to everyone!

London pictures (the beginning)

Sorry about the delay with the pictures and update on the rest of my journey. Came back on thursday, then had quite a pile of pictures to sort through, some Christmas presents to get, and today 6,5 hour train journey up north to spend Christmas holidays with my parents.

I'm not quite sure about the best method of displaying the photos, as I really took a large number of them. Maybe I'll post a few at a time, that way they'll last longer. Here, to start with, is a few greyscale shots from those brick houses in East London, around about Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. By the way, in case someone didn't know, Boris (in the 3rd picture) is London's current mayor, conservative Boris Johnson. Obviously not all like him.

So, tuesday started with me walking the half a mile stretch of Regent's Canal from my hotel to Victoria Park, where I got some pretty good, somewhat melancholy winter photos, aided by a slight fog.

Next, back along the same stretch of canal, up on Cambridge Heath Road and towards Bethnal Green tube station. On the way I stopped by the Museum of Childhood, a branch of the Victoria & Albert Museum. What a marvellous place! It has toys, games, doll houses, all sorts of things which people used to amuse themselves from the 17th century onwards. I ended up staying a couple of hours, a good portion of which was spent trying to get Robbie The Robot, a 7-foot mechanical robot to work by connecting the cogwheels at its back. I failed in the mission. Eventually a little girl came to inquire what I was doing, and when I explained, noted "Oh dear". Her mother then came and tried to work the robot. I left them to it.

In the evening I and my friend did the Shoreditch walk from the London Footprints website (http://www.london-footprints.co.uk). The website has some 60 walks all around London and is a very useful resource in that it reveals many historical details about the buildings and locales along the walks you otherwise might not easily find in any guide. The website has only one, but major, shortcoming: it would be much easier to follow the walks if they had maps showing the routes, with the buildings and spots of special interest marked with numbers. We had a bit of trouble finding the starting spot of the walk but it was a most enjoyable evening.

WEDNESDAY. Sunny day! Not seen many of them this winter. The sunny weather of course affected the mood of the pictures I took. Among others, I got some rather fantastic pictures of the canal and the gasworks there. A particularly enjoyable occurrence was when I was taking pictures of the J. Hoyle & Son Foundry (est. 1880) just on the Hackney side of Regent's Canal: the current foundry master (not sure about the proper job title) happened to step out and was very pleased to end up in the picture, cheerfully announcing "I'm smiling!".

Evening: rock'n'roll! I made my way to the Indig02 venue for the Who show just before the support band started. Not the most fantastic spot: some way from the stage, a bit too close to the speakers. Nevertheless, I had good enough a view to Pete (until, that is, some tall guys got in front of me). A venue with a size that is to my taste, some 2300+ people. Excellent show. Good setlist, with some songs played more rarely (Tattoo, Sister Disco), Pete and Roger seemed in good shape and mood, joking and talking. Well worth the 45 pounds. However, I have a confession to make which might cause some fans to name me a heretic: I saw a review where the writer was enthusing about Pete's leaps and rock'n'roll strutting, finding it incredibly intense. I know those are the thing for many fans, but I must say I'd prefer Pete in a quieter context. The reason is I just can't take all that strutting seriously, and I have a feeling that Pete doesn't take it seriously either.

THURSDAY: Homeward bound. All too soon. I really like the areas of East London I spent the days in, and would have stayed longer if possible. Couldn't be helped. I hopped on the central line tube at Bethnal Green Station and travelled to West Ruislip in West London, where my friend picked me up. We drove to Runnymede, a beautiful rural place along the Thames in Surrey, to have a walk along the river as there were a few hours left before I needed to be at the airport. A truly idyllic location to live - if not for the proximity of Heathrow and the noise caused by planes taking off and landing. My friend then drove me to the airport and it was bye bye London. I hope I'll have the opportunity to spend a longer time in East London in the future.

More pictures to follow in the next installment.

Londinium!

I am currently located in London.

Originally I didn't plan to go but then found a really good offer in a travel agency: 4 nights at a new 3 star hotel in Shoreditch, East London (LARGE room, even has a bath, breakfast included) plus flights only 540 euros in total. As I have a good friend in London, and an ambition to go to East London to photograph those Victorian brown-brick buildings, the offer was perfect. Off I went and booked a little Christmas holiday for myself. As an afterthought I decided to try and find a ticket for one of The Who's three London shows, and as luck would have it, found a floor ticket for the 3rd show (on wednesday).

I arrived yesterday. My friend got me from the airport and drove me to the hotel, then we went on a little walk in the neighbourhood, Brick Lane and so on. Today's programme contained lots of walking in East London and taking pictures: first, some of the area south of the hotel, towards Brick Lane. Then back north, to Regent's Canal which is close by; walked the half a mile along the canal to Victoria Park though decided not to go 'round it after all as it's a rather depressing weather for parks: cloudy, slightly foggy, chilly. So, I turned back and walked some way along the canal westwards, towards Islington, then made my way back to the Spitafields Market and Brick Lane, then to the hotel. I had a really good time, though my enjoyment - and photography - was slightly marred by the weather. For one thing, cloudy, nearly white sky is bad for photography. Well, can't do much about winter, eh?

I must say I'm liking the area a lot. As those who know about London history should know, East London used to be a rough area. I guess some areas there still are (others would know that better than I), but Shoreditch has become a very trendy district, with artists etc moving in. However, NOT trendy in the sense of being all surface and style. It's alive and vibrant with the bustle of multicultural life, and I much prefer that to the "fancy" parts of the city. And oh yes, there's something about those brown-brick buildings.

Tomorrow will of course include lots more walking and photographing, though I haven't decided the "programme" in detail yet.

Will put up photos eventually, when I have time. Now, I think I'll draw myself a hot bath. Good hotels are almost sinfully enjoyable!

Water

A couple of pictures here I like a great deal: fairly simple in composition but beautiful. I suppose water is a kind of a classic theme in visual arts, but it's such a beautiful and fascinating element.

Birch Trees

Silver

EDIT (WEDNESDAY): Have you seen the news about those riots in Athens, Greece, that have been going on since saturday? A bit frightening, because I'm familiar with the place: I stayed there for about 8 months in 2003. I think I even recognised the cell phone and computer store they mentioned in the newspaper as being robbed by some rioters! Looking at the map the article had, I'm pretty sure it was a store I walked past many a time on my from the place I was staying in to a library fairly close to the Acropolis, or wherever in the city.

Computer geekdom

This one just to get away from the dark pictures for a bit, taken on November 28th. The wall belongs to the offices of WSOY, a large book publisher. It's a huge construction of glass walls around a steel (or whatever it is) structure. I usually don't like modern architecture that much, but this building sort of works.

The trouble with this time of year is that the opportunities for this sort of pictures are few and far between (hm, did I use this expression correctly?). It is steadfastly refusing to get cold - by this I mean below zero - so on most days it rains. Or is at least cloudy. Night photography is fun but there's such a thing as too much. Although, having said that, today I went out for an evening walk in the park nearby which is by the sea. It's a wonderful place at any time of year and day, but I think I find it the most beautiful in the evening in winter, when there's no snow. One of the reasons is the lighting there which is not bright, glaring and cold as so much city lighting tends to be but soft and warm. There's something really special in walking along the shore in the soft light and darkness, listening to the gentle waves (they were gentle tonight) and looking at the city lights across the bay.

**

So, I decided to become a real proper computer geek: I ditched Windows and got Ubuntu linux instead. It all started with getting one of those asus eee pc mini laptops, a 7 inch thing weighing about a kilo which is fantastic to carry around in libraries and travelling. It has linux installed, and I liked it a lot. I was surprised to find out that actually it's easy to use. The basic things like installing programs are quick to learn and it's easy to find help for problems you run into. My laptop with Windows XP had slowed down and I was frustrated of not being able to sort it out. So, having heard a lot about Ubuntu while sorting out the mini laptop (it has a modified Xandros, based on the same core as Ubuntu, called Debian), I today installed it on my laptop. Everything worked like a charm, I could get the external sound card, printers etc. working straight away. I'm loving it. I'm absolutely loving it. It sorted out the slowness problems. It looks great. Most of the software I need came with the OS, and it's easy to install others via a manager program which gives access to a large array of software sources. Best of all, it's all free. The basic usage is actually not that different from Windows, except that Linux does not have any useless rubbish of the sort Windows XP has, little things which nobody needs and which all together only weigh the system down.

Now this is already proper computer geek talk isn't? People who aren't computer geeks probably don't give a toss about any of it. :-)

Weird moods

Darkness, cloudy sky and artificial lighting are good for sort of weird, unreal moods: strange tones of light and colours.

Still, I wouldn't mind at all if the dark time lasted about one month at maximum. Half a year is really rather exaggerated. I have to be optimistic though: it's only three months to late February when the sun already starts to come out during daylight time. If we're lucky there'll be snow and that will be REALLY bright.

The Villa

Sometimes - well, mostly, given the opportunity - I can't resist taking pictures like this. The sky is a bit bright if one wanted that "it was a dark and stormy night" feel, otherwise fairly successful. I reduced the brightness of the sky a bit already, but the trouble in cities is of course light pollution.

These villas aren't gloomy and dark at all. On the contrary, they are large, immensely beautiful wooden villas from the early part of the 20th century (I think), from the times when the wealthy still did that sort of thing - stayed in villas in the summer. This one is located in the part of Helsinki that is called Töölö, on a hill, overlooking a bay. Here is a satellite picture: LINK. It's the building immediately below the bridge that goes over the railroad tracks. The other buildings visible in the wooded area around the railroad tracks and along the bay are similar villas. I love walking this particular route, from the railway station (to the south in the satellite map), along the left side of the railroad tracks, along the bay, up on the hill and across the bridge. With sunny weather the view over the bay is magnificent, the way the sun glimmers on the water. Others have noticed it too, since a summer cafe operates there.

The Crash-Landing of Winter

The winter arrived with a real crash-landing this weekend. On Friday, it was Autumn in Helsinki. Me, my sister and brother with his entire family boarded the ferry that afternoon to go on my sister's birthday surprise trip, a weekend spa holiday in Tallinn, Estonia. Great great fun. On friday evening there was already snow in Tallinn but on sunday a HUGE snow storm arrived, I've never experienced anything the like before. Wind speed upwards of 25 meters per second (20 is storm limit), visibility zero, the snow feeling like millions of needles piercing the skin. Would have been nearly impossible to get to the ferry terminal for our ferry back that day, even though it was not a long distance to walk, had we not been extremely lucky and managed to get a cab. The ferry itself was five hours late because the ships were unable to get docked because of the wind (unlike, for instance, Helsinki, Tallinn has no islands so the port is subject to the full force of storms). It was supposed to leave at 5.30 pm and reach Helsinki at 7.30 but in the end took until 00.30 am.

In the meantime the snow storm, in somewhat weakened form, had reached Helsinki. It had snowed heavily for most of the day and it continued at night. The metro had stopped running, as had the day buses and trams, and of course there was no hope of getting a cab at the terminal. We had no option but to walk about a kilometer to get cabs - unpleasant for adults, all too much for the boys, no older than 9 and 3 respectively, already exhausted because of the long journey. In the end we were lucky to get cabs fairly easily on one of the big streets, so it ended well. My brother let me know that the boys were already cheered up and were able to laugh about the adventure when they had got into the cab. Myself I got home around 2 am without trouble, save for a bit when the cab got stuck in the snow and the driver had to get out to do some shovelling. He reduced the fare because of it, very fair of him.

It snowed through monday as well, the pictures are from that day. Apparently the snow is going to melt soon. In the city center much of the beautiful whiteness has indeed already turned into brown and grey slosh, while here in the suburb the snow retains its whiteness a bit longer. I can say, however, that the winter's grand entrance was impressive indeed. :-)

There's something about light...

... isn't there? Some more sun from yesterday.

Let there be light

At this time of year in Finland it pretty much begins to be the rule that if the temperature is more than one or two degrees above zero, it's cloudy and rainy, often foggy as well. Not to mention windy, of course. So it has been for what feels like most of November so far. Things changed for a bit on monday, as the temperature fell to zero and the sun came out.

I like the lil' bottles

Late autumn rains have some use after all... they encourage imagination indoors!

Red and Round

Actually one of the photos (see the rest of them here, latest seven photos) in a specific project. Sounds rather grand, that word, but Vastavalo, the photo bureau I'm a member of, has a section for customer requests: if someone is looking for a specific kind of picture, a request is posted in the section, asking photographers to offer such pictures among their work that fit the specifications. Then the list is sent to the customer, and he/she picks the picture/pictures he/she likes (if any). On monday, someone was looking for a picture to be used as an artwork on living room wall: preferably abstract but not absolutely necessary, two colours, grey and red, should have a largish, roundish thing in red. Quite a few photographers posted their suggestions. At first I thought I wouldn't have anything to offer, but then I got a large red cup, some tomatoes and some grey cardboard for background and started experimenting. Not exactly abstract but it was immensely enjoyable and quite inspiring too to play around with the "ingredients".

Using what is at hand

The two pictures in this blog post you might find depressing, but that is sort of the point: the idea was to capture that 70's concrete suburban mood. They were taken at the mall just across the big road nearby.


As it happens, I do live in a suburb but I don't find it at all depressing. On the contrary it's a brilliant place to live: the sea all around, the woods, places of historical interest in the form of an area with several old, ruined summer villas and a rather fine early 19th century manor not too far away (now a museum), good connections to the city - which will get better after the new tram line, supposed to run on a tall bridge across the water, is finished in 2014. The suburb doesn't have much concrete either. Just the mall is an authentic 70's mall - in outlay and general lack of colour even if some of the buildings are a bit more recent. Which gets me to my subject: I'm rather fond of the idea of letting the circumstances direct my choice of themes and methods of photography. It was cloudy, foggy and rainy today. Not a weather for, say, beautiful sea sceneries. PERFECT weather for depressing suburban scenes like these. Grey concrete isn't sufficient for creating the desired effect on its own if the sky isn't right. For example, brilliant sunlight and blue skies would change the mood completely, because not even the ugliest of human inventions, concrete, can resist the transmuting power of the sun.


Why do I want to take depressing suburban concrete pictures then? It's one form of reality - depressing suburbia. That's one reason. More important is... I'm not really interested in capturing "reality" in terms of documenting it. I'm more interested in trying to capture what whatever is it that catches my attention makes me think. As to what catches my attention, I try to keep an access-all-areas mind, not to get stuck with a limited range of things.

Hm, is this pretentious nonsense? Well if it is, so be it! I liked writing it.

A Shopping Cart's Odyssey

Dark woods

This I find quite successful in terms of how it uses the light and the strong darkness and the simple elements to create a mood - to my eyes a slightly ominous, "don't go into the woods" mood.

I neglected to mention that I got my first picture sold on Vastavalo, the Finnish photo bureau I'm a member of, on the weekend! Yay! Nothing major: it was one of the (work-related) images purchased for web usage, for someone's personal website. Also, it won't make me rich: the sale price is 30 euros, the photographer gets about 50%, then there's probably tax, so that leaves about 7 euros. But it's a start, a foot in the doorway so to speak! :-)

Night

Evening moods

Taken in a park close to my home sometime after 5 pm. I sure am glad I got the good tripod. No hope taking photos like these otherwise! Note: click on the pictures to view in larger size. The dark background of the blog makes dark pictures look a bit too... well, dark.

And now for some art

Here is an outdoors installation that I captured just a short while after the heavenly revelation of the rainbow. :-)

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Certainly not the most usual phenomenon to see in Finland in late Autumn. It was barely over 10 C, VERY windy, rain showers. But the sun came out for a while, and at a perfect moment for me as I was on a bridge with a fabulous view. I was already on the bridge when it appeared, and it made me gasp in awe. This was a bit after 3 pm today. I sure wish I'd been a bit farther away as I couldn't get the entire rainbow to fit in the camera lens: it made a perfect arch over that group of buildings in the picture. Maybe a wideangle lens would've done the same (if I had one). I could of course have tried to take three pictures and then combine them in a panorama, but in my excitement I didn't remember that.

From the righthand end...

...to the high point of the arch...

...to the lefthand end.

Not the greatest of weathers but I had a fabulous time nevertheless: I walked all the way from my home in eastern Helsinki, along the shores, to the city center - some 9-10 kilometers. I felt almost euphoric when I got to the city, not only because of the rainbow but because the exercise felt so good. I didn't feel tired at all, but invigorated (still do). A long time since I last did this walk.