This is a statue of an important man (I know not who). Once it would have stood on a pedestal but somehow it has been toppled and now it rests ingloriously on the earth, the head spattered with purple fruit. Is there a moral to this? Is it an allusion to the impermanence of life and the transience of worldly glory? Or just a snap of the bust of an armless man?
Here in the west the economy is heading south. One casualty of our straitened times is a local menswear shop which has been forced to close down. Apart from flogging off its stock it is selling its ‘chins’ (that appears to be the name for these models). They’re a bargain and I regret I didn’t buy one. Too late now; the shop is shuttered.
In markets, colours clash and hit your eyeballs. Smells assert themselves like boxers in a ring. Often, your body is crushed and squeezed. You stare at the produce trying to decide: is it a bargain or is it a con? This snap was taken in a side street off Brick Lane, a fabulously varied market, in the East End of London.
One thing… the only thing I have in common with the great photographer Robert Frank is that he took a series of photos from a bus (New York, 1950s) and I did the same in Peckham. His are better. But, I only discovered that he’d done it after I’d done it. Did we do it for the same reason? The appeal of safety when you take a photo from behind glass in a moving vehicle.
The Daimler was parked by Peckham Rye. It was awaiting the bride who was conventionally late. In the photograph you can just see, swimming in the shiny surface, a reflection of the Rye. Art, but is it?
