Hydrogen at the RAC
I was fortunate enough to be allowed in to the RAC Foundation head quarters located on Pall Mall. Every week they have a different car on display in the foyer and I was there to shoot this one….. I have no clue what car that is either. The tiny car was made purely out of carbon fibre and the BIG hint on the door is that it runs on hydrogen. Thats putting my GCSE science to good use right there. I didn’t want to be too cheeky and just wander around the building as I could of easily spent hours inside this marvel. Its a HDR photographers dream.
And I’ve got to say that I love the carpet!
Roads over Heygate
The abandoned Heygate Estate in elephant and Castle on full to 2 things. Rubbish and people trying to climb over everything. No idea why! There were concrete walkways that spanned the complex that were once used to navigate the complex maze-work of roads. Yes they were all blocked off and if I was feeling even a tad more enthusiastic I guess I could of jumped over and got some even better pictures. I wasn’t so made do with trying to use them as strange object in a photo. Standard procedure really.
Angle in the Wind
Nope I still haven’t discovered why these wind turbines on the top of the Strata tower do not spin like they were designed to. Perhaps its one of the modern mysteries that will never be solved. Perhaps they do work but just for some reason decide to never spin everytime I have seen them (everyday on the train into London). They maybe Toy Story esque and only come to life when no one is looking at them.
Still Paradise?
Paradise still looks good in black and white dont you think. The colour one was too boring to I bumped up the contrast and blues in the sky to get it popping. I had to try and figure out where this was taken. There aren’t exactly any landmarks that I can reference from. Luckily I keep all my unprocessed photos organised in lightroom, which means that I know the general vicinity is Miami but that is all. There are thousands of places that look like this so your guess is as good as mine.
In despair let there be science
Even in the dimmist of situations people always have faith or in this case their faith is Brian Cox. I guess he is a great replacement for Jesus, spreading the knowledge of science to his disciples. Who would his dad be? I’ll leave that for thought.
This was taken in the abandoned Heygate estate. I have no idea why this poster was there but does it need a reason? It was the only thing that wasn’t covered in graffiti. Either people love him that much (I know I do) that they cant bear themselves to deface it or that it had only been there for a very short amount of time.
P.s. There was ALOT of them. Maybe he came round and put them up himself.
Bar before the storm
Interior shots always come out well. It’s not really hard when you are inside a manor house. Everything is so well kept and styled. Before the wedding I went round the whole of Addington Palace taking pictures before the madness of the day started. For some reason I was put in charge of making sure everything was ready for when the guests started to arrive. One of my many usher duties. This was going to be the busiest room in the place as its the source of all alcohol (and a lot was drunk that night). The highlight being my dad doing Jager Bombs (I have many photos of that event too).
Double Trouble
There is a colourful walkway hidden in London. Well I guess not really hidden as there was a number of things happening in this tunnel that i’ll get into in a bit, but hidden from me as I’ve never been there before. This was is a treasure trove of graffiti art. The photographers I was with told me that once a month the council paint white over everything and make it a blank canvas. Its a shame as it looks like so much work was put into lots of these.
Sometimes before you even take a photo, you know how you want the final edited version to look. This was one of those times. I imagined the couple being surrounded by light as they walked through the doorway. A pure light surrounded by scruffyness. A little poetic perhaps? A problem came to light when I was processing. I liked the image before I added the glaring light behind it. I’ve posted both . Let me know what one you prefer.
Look at those guns
Taking a photo of this gave me a headache. In theory the shot should work really well. You go there thinking that getting the large guns lined up with the pathway with the building behind should be simple, but no. The designer must of been in a strange mood and wanting to prank photographers of the future. Well they succeeded. The guns never line up and when you get them to you are halfway onto the grass and have a wet knew from kneeling.
Imperial War Museum 1 – 0 Photographers
Abstract Strata
The Strata tower apparently was an architectural disaster. I should really google this for the reasons why, as it would take seconds, but perhaps i’ll leave that for another post. All you need to know is that there are 3 huge wind turbines on top that are meant to power part of (if not the entire) building. It certainly is in a windy spot but the turbines just dont turn. It was so windy that it was hard to take a decent image on a tripod as it kept on moving. Perhaps thats an indication that I need to invest in a better tripod but i’m just going with the wind theory. This was taken hand held while trying to shelter from the wind. I didn’t succeed.
Zombieland
It’s pretty much common knowledge that there are lots of abandoned housing estates around London but I didn’t know exactly where this one was until a friend introduced me to it. This is the Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle. Its completely abandoned and much larger then you think. It’s made up of 2 areas, connected by a bridge that spans the main road. We climbed a very small fence and squeezed through a gap to make are way in. Yep that was pointless as the other side of the estate is completely open to the main road and takes exactly 0% effort to get in.
Its completely deserted and filled with graffiti inside. We actually came across a surprising amount of people. Mainly photographers doing exactly the same thing as us but there were some, what should I call them?, street artists there.
