Go to work on a Rothko

I used to work in an office close to Tate Modern. I know, we all used to work… reminds me of a postcard from the 80s: ‘Daddy, what did you do when there were jobs?’ asks a young girl of her father sunken into an armchair. At the time (back to the 80s) the building which is now Tate Modern was up for demolition. Yes, it was about to be razed, probably to make room for snazzy apartments. In my lunch-hour I would sometimes come and pay respect to the building. I didn’t just mourn its imminent destruction, I would will it into life. And like all good fairy stories, it ended happily ever after. So happily, that one woman is able to immerse herself in a Rothko painting in Tate Modern to the exclusion of all else. 

Has bin

I was waiting for the bus when I took this photo. I don’t know what the crow was waiting for. (It perched on the bin for a long time.) Possibly its dinner: discarded KFC or McDonald’s, perhaps. Crows are adept at getting their food needs met. They will use their feet and beak to secure and open a bag of crisps, for instance. And, they’ll wade in to any gathering of lesser-sized birds to grab the goods. I like the way they walk, a little pigeon-toed, a little wide-of-the-mark, as if they’ve just got off a horse. They levitate like helicopters when setting off to fly. As to the cawing, it’s distinctive and that’s the best you can say about it.

The incomparable Vivian Maier

Anyone yet to come across Vivian Maier’s street photography is in for a treat. She began photographing in the 1950s, mostly in New York and Chicago. Her photos combine aesthetics with humour and pathos. In her lifetime Vivian was unknown as a photographer. It was only when a cache of thousands of negatives and hundreds of prints turned up at an auction house that her work was discovered as a treasure trove of images. This is one of her hats worn when she was out photographing on the mean streets. It travelled 3,000+ miles to Brixton’s Photofusion gallery which held an exhibition of her work. A woman with a hat on is regarded, I like to think, in a kindly way. I, too, often wear one when snapping our mean streets.  www.vivianmaier.com/

On high

These days in the arcades of Brixton market you can eat pizza topped with buffalo mozzarella, order a flat white coffee or drink organic wine… but trek a little further and you’ll discover a wilder side.

Despite appearances, this scene has nothing to do with bondage -- at least I don’t think so. The stall-holder is simply using what’s around him to show off his wares. He stands beneath the display selling, when I was there, a cotton flower-print nightdress. 

A pleasant fate

Punch and Judy. Home-made marmalade. Dog show. Cake tent. Book stall. Crocheted tea cosies. Sack race. A coconut shy. Beer and Pimms. The Peckham Rye Fete, held yesterday, managed, as it always does, to suspend time and place. And this year it was hot, enhancing the feeling that we weren’t quite in 21^st Century inner London in September.

A pleasant fate

Punch and Judy. Home-made marmalade. Dog show. Cake tent. Book stall. Crocheted tea cosies. Sack race. A coconut shy. Beer and Pimms. The Peckham Rye Fete, held yesterday, managed, as it always does, to suspend time and place. And this year it was hot, enhancing the feeling that we weren’t quite in 21^st Century London in September.

A pyramid of highlights

Seated in an alcove of a hairdressing salon that opened out onto the street, she presented too good a photo opportunity to ignore. I felt guilty taking the shot. Of course, I did. But, that’s the dilemma that street or documentary photographers face. I try always to veer on the side of respecting my subjects. I wouldn’t say the lady was happy with my intrusion, but all I can say is sorry. And, hooray because it’s a photo that pleases my sense of the absurd.