DAYS OF YORE IN KENSINGTON

Back in The Land Of Hope And Glory where I now reside (as opposed to The Land That Style Forgot where I was born), the sun is shining and we have a long, hot Diamond Jubilee summer on the horizon. I've been known to doze away many a pleasant hour lazing on a sunny afternoon in Kensington Gardens. Kensington is such a beautiful part of London and its narrow back alleys still remind me of a more innocent era, sadly now confined to the nostalgic mists of history books. On one of my many charity shoppe pilgrimages (a big shout out to the ladies at the Hammersmith Amnesty Bookshoppe, purveyors of the finest second-hand books at very reasonable prices) I came across a delightful old book illustrating some lovely parts of west London. A couple of Kensington back streets (below) were included and I wanted to find out how much had actually changed since the original photographs were taken. I reshot the following images in 2010, and as you can see the basic architecture remains unchanged, only the vintage signage, clothing and the notorious London grime have been 'disappeared' by money and progress's inevitable, odious onslaught. Its interesting to note too how the Dukes Lane top windows have been reconstructed and the exterior minimalised with the removal of the shutters and the posh white paint job. My guess is the original shots were taken sometime around the 1940s. How brilliant it would be to step back in time for a day, pause for a natter in the street about hats with the local ladies and poke around this long forgotten world...

Kensington Church Walk original photograph below :

My modern reshoot :

Dukes Lane original photograph below :

My modern reshoot :

OLD SCHOOL TECHNOLOGY

Its amazing really, how easy it is to create some interesting imagery even using the most basic, crappy old  mobile phone - no iphone apps or Photoshop, just pure and simple old-school luddite technology. These ones were taken around 11pm on my walk home after seeing the excellent film Inside Job. I now know a lot more about leverages, Reganomics and why Alan Greenspan's a knob...which I must admit is extremely exciting.

MORE REFLECTIONS...

Just wanted to post some more reflections up...though as I'm not feeling reflective in the slightest I'll keep the Piccadilly palare to a minimum. A few more shots of London's pretty mise-en-scene...around the streets (paved with gold) of Soho and Chelsea. Easy meat and a reasonably good buy...

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW

Such a beautiful novelty being woken up at 2am by a stark, pure white glow reflecting off the snow through my venetian blinds...this is the first fall of the season - much heavier and earlier than usual...

Views like these make my shyster slum landlords' outrageous rent increases almost tolerable...almost.

WALKER EVANS AT THE HIGHGATE SOCIETY

Seminal American Depression-era photographer Walker Evans' work currently features in a small show at The Highgate Society, a humble community hall in north London's most atmospheric village (below). The building resonates with civic charm, its dusty pink interior walls dotted with a royal Victorian coat of arms, along with marble busts of (presumably) local people of note. (below bottom).

Evans' haunting, sepia-toned images depict the dead-eyed reality of the grinding rural poverty, desolation and hopelessness characteristic of the mid-1930s American mid west. The photographer's work emanates a stark, dignified sympathy towards his subjects, while remaining unmistakably political within a subtle, almost stoic aesthetic framework. Certainly, the irony must not be lost on The Highgate Society's curators in featuring such emotive photographs of hardship and despair in one of London's most affluent boroughs during these times of modern financial armageddon. We may not be eating out of dustbins just yet but lets hope when our time comes we all appear as photogenic as Evans' 1930s models.

RONALD WRIGHT, GENTLEMAN HOMOSEXUAL

I'm back...loyal readers (all paltry nine of you...come on people)! I'm afraid my attention was temporarily diverted by a new art project (more of which later), the well-stocked biography shelves of the Chelsea library and those pesky three-a-day World Cup fixtures (as the professionals call them)...sigh...one must endure those hours of 9 to 5 Kafkaesque drudgery somehow...

So...on to Mr Ronald Wright, Gentleman Homosexual (left). The Schwartz Gallery in Hackney...(a converted warehouse in a sea of converted warehouses) recently mounted a show on the life and times of Ronald Wright, a man well known amongst historic London gay circles as an artist, psychic, nude model and general bon vivant. The Schwartz show wasn't particularly interesting in terms of his work - Wright's own artistic output comprising primarily of decidely amateurish drawings of glamorous film stars. The man's genuine 'talent' resided in his good looks, brawny physicality and well hung family jewels.

The real fascination of the Schwartz show for me lay in Wright's personal photographs featuring a quaint, retro, black and white English '60s aesthetic. These vintage images consisted largely of beefcake 'anatomy' shots of the well built Wright (reminiscent of a Daniel Craig In Too Tight Budgie Smugglers James Bond). The interior styling and the clothes however, the hairstyles, even Wright's nerdy glasses in these photographs evoke the London of the Krays, the Profumo Scandal, hip backcombed barnets, sharp suits and an illegal (yet presumably extremely stylish)  underground homosexual scene.

I also wanted to publish these images in response to the (sometimes blatant, sometimes insidious but evidently ubiquitous) sexism and total objectification of women I find myself increasingly enduring in this fair city. The Backlash, it seems is finally arriving, our left-wing media outlets reintroducing feminism back onto the agenda in these post-ironic times now that we have a new government sprouting a 'new politics' (still largely white, male and Etonian) in a depressing new Age of Austerity.

So I implore you, dear readers...feast your eyes on Ronald Wright's massive cock!

REFLECTIONS

Ever since I learnt how to use a camera I've been fascinated by reflections. Initially, I lost my passion for photography when I moved out of that industry but the final straw came when I dropped my SLR in a hungover stupor in the pretty town of Kecskemet, Hungary - where men dressed up as teapots and the local kids gathered in the town square on a Saturday to cut each others' hair. From then on it was strictly party shots on the crappy £20 emergency camera I picked up in Slovakia.

Of course the 'digital revolution' has proved to be the great equaliser in terms of enabling all kinds of amateurs to take decent photographs. And London in the springtime is just too tempting not to photograph, especially after The Coldest Winter In Thirty Years. I really like the juxtaposition between two incongruous elements in these reflective photographs. Essentially these images are nothing more than a basic digital collage. I love traditional collage techniques (30 scrapbooks can't be all wrong) but their production is labour intensive. The reflective photograph on the other hand, is instant gratification. Nice!