Almost, nearly, practically existentialist

Can Major Chaos be far behind..?

Spiritual shopping in Brixton

It claims to be ‘the real-true spiritual shop… your last spiritual shop’. On the door a notice welcomes you ‘to come in and seek help from a spiritual advisor’. Above the door a sign warns: ‘Holy Ghost Zone Devil Keep Off.’ All of this should be consoling, but it worries me. I mean, if the last spiritual shop can’t provide what you need, then what? 

Discarded art

This has a distinctly twisted nightmare thing going for it… clawed feet, a horned head, random bosoms, a tail, perhaps two, and all of it in a salacious pink. Perhaps it was inspired by Dali’s sofa, designed as an homage to Mae West’s lips. The artwork was abandoned in Peckham: heaven knows why.

Popcorn Peckham

Friday evening and I was on a bus -- top deck -- when I took this photo in Peckham.  Peckham and popcorn go together quite well.  Frivolous and sticky and 50 pence only!  I can imagine the woman reaching home, tipping the popcorn into a bowl and her kids enjoying it as they watch TV, a treat at the end of another week at school. 

Mature but tasty

A medium-sized OAP and a green salad, please.  Mmm.

A man at rest and a man arrested

At the Southbank I photographed a man who, after eating a sandwich, stretched out on a bench for 40 winks.  Moments later I was in Tate Modern where I drank a coffee, looked at art and admired the view. Then I remembered Ai Weiwei currently detained at the Chinese government’s behest precisely because he is the sort of a man who might eat a sandwich and enjoy an unscheduled snooze (or whatever he fancied) and think to hell with it.  I knew Tate Modern had put up a sign to promote Ai Weiwei’s release from imprisonment, but where was it?  Finally I found it at the top of this iconic building. I can only add a small voice to the clamour for his freedom and that of others in China who are free spirits and have something to say for themselves.

Prize winner!

I entered this photo to the Bicentenary Friends’ Exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery (England’s oldest public gallery, designed by the incomparable Sir John Soane) and it won a prize!  The photo is of a gentleman called Hilroy, known to his friends as Honey.  After the photo appeared on a website a few years ago, I was contacted by the family. I learned that Hilroy had died shortly after I photographed him.  I also discovered what a fine man he was… artist, musician, carpenter and style icon.  To read about the exhibition, click on:

http://dulwichonview.org.uk/2011/04/26/south-london-women-artists-win-lionesses’-share-of-the-prizes/