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/

Sanity grows in parks

I was in the library the other day when perfect strangers spoke about how awful it would be if our library closed.  ‘Yes,’ said one woman, ‘it will be dreadful if the libraries go, but if they shut the parks… people will go mad.’  This photo shows a floral display (red, white and blue?) in Southwark Park. It’s my nod to the royal wedding. Of course, Kat and Will will never be without parks; we had better keep our parks, too, or else…

Double Happiness!

Occasionally, the camera and I venture beyond Peckham.  This is a young man employed in the kitchen of a restaurant or hotel near London’s Carnaby Street (an assumption based on his clothes).  He’s taking a break and by squatting and shielding his face, he has created privacy out on the street. He reads a book… nearly at the end now.  He's also holding a lighter and pack of Double Happiness cigarettes, a Chinese brand, for times when single happiness is not enough.  

When Art met Music

How else to paint Handel, if not with care?  This is the packaging on an artist’s work soon to be unwrapped and hung -- with care -- at an exhibition space in Peckham.  

Taking a shine to shoes

Forget Paris. In Peckham the trend is for wearing a shoe upon the head.  It promotes excellent posture and there’s one left over to walk in.