The Notting Hill Carnival
We hadn’t planned to hit the Notting Hill Carnival because, not living in the capital, we don’t really tend to follow events happening up there. However, at fairly short notice we had a reason to visit London on Saturday and wanting to make the most of the trip we had a look around to see what else was going on in the city. Neither of us had been to a carnival before so this was going to be a new experience. How would I describe the Notting Hill Carnival? Crowded. In parts, very crowded. Loud. Very loud. Almost everywhere. And quite messy. Ankle-deep in discarded meat, corn cobs, containers, cans, and bags is not unusual. And the people – at least in the first area where we found ourselves – didn’t seem particularly happy. My wife wasn’t particularly pleased with the crowds or noise (although she said she could have tolerated them; they’re pretty much expected for carnivals, after all) or the lack of fun apparently being had by most people but it was the mess that she just couldn’t stand. Sadly, this meant that I grudgingly agreed to keep the visit to the carnival quite short but my “quite short” isn’t exactly the same as her’s. Our exit route would take us through quite a lot of the carnival as it turned out. All the things that my wife hated were the things I loved. Lots of people just being people in public is exactly what I like photographing. The floats and flashy outfits that everyone associates with a carnival parade do nothing for me but the grit and grime attract my eye. The following constitutes a very small selection of the photos I took of the Notting Hill Carnival in London on August 24th 2014. You can see the full selection of photos here: Notting Hill Carnival Photos. A little bit of that mess that disgusted my wife. And a smidge more. Usually when I see someone sleeping while surrounded by loud noises and lots of people I assume they’ve had too much to drink but it’s probably not the case in this particular instance. I hope. One of those lucky shots fired off while the camera was at waist height that caught a ray of sunlight through a woman’s sunglasses and a happy moment of carnival strangulation, possibly in retaliation for blowing that horn the kid’s holding. I get the feeling that my wife wouldn’t have minded so much experiencing the carnival atmosphere in a similar way; far above the crowds. I liked being in the thick of things. I’m not even going to hazard a...
Street Photography By Marie Laigneau
Someone who almost always gets a +1 from me whenever her photos appear on her Google+ stream and I spot them, Marie Laigneau is a prolific street photographer based in Chicago. Just recently she’s been shooting in Japan too, an area of the world I really need to get back to in order to get my street photography vibe back, and I felt compelled to showcase some of her pictures from there as well as a few older ones too. An outstanding composition and even if your eyes are drawn to the face bottom left instantly you can still spend a few seconds staring everywhere else looking at the layers in the reflections and through the glass. My greatest desire and greatest fear in one photo: night street photography and eye contact! Another one in a similar vein and this one looks like there’s a story waiting to be told from the moment after the shot. It also highlights that I really shouldn’t be so hung up on getting sharp shots myself. Where to start? There’s light, there’s shadow, there’s fabulous framing, there are great lines drawing the eyes this way and that, there’s a wonderful subject, there are great contrasts between the near-monochrome background and the vibrant colours in front. I like this shot a lot. This photo reminds me so much of film photographs from the 1970s and 1980s and that speaks warmly to my retro heart. The subject matter is excellent and there’s just something about the woman on the right facing away from the camera that stands out. Another beautifully-framed shot and a great moment of concentration captured. To finish with, another one of Marie’s black-and-white shots and the reason I like this is because it looks to me like the subject is forming some thought bubbles. It’s a great pose and a great composition. All of Marie’s photos can be found on Google+ and there’s more to see on her website http://marielaigneau.com/...
Portsmouth, Alien Invasion – Defy Them Poster
We’ve already seen that one way in which the citizens of Portsmouth kept their spirits up during the alien invasion by the Squirmy Munge of the early part of the twentieth century was through comics, and in particular the well-received Commander Pompey publication. Another way, and one common with most of the greater wars in recent centuries, was through motivational posters, the most famous of which was the Defy Them poster that first started appearing on walls in and around the city in late 1919. Present day Portsmouth has a thriving local art scene and it can clearly be seen that this talent was alive and well in 1919 too. However, it’s not just the wonderful example of art deco design that made this particular war poster so famous. It happens to have a rather bizarre history to it too. A tale started circulating in the city of a young woman named Abigail Ball. Abigail – it was claimed – had been walking through the Baffins area of Portsmouth when a Squirmy Munge landing craft dropped onto the ground in front of her. As the hatch on the craft hissed open and too afraid to run or scream Abigail did the first thing she could think of and performed an interpretive dance routine. The hatch closed up, the craft lifted off, and Abigail lived to tell her tale. Quite a fanciful story but it proved popular among the locals. The posters started to appear not long after and dancing to defy became a regular pastime for the people of Portsmouth. It was believed that the elusive and mysterious Abigail herself had designed, printed, and put up the posters as each one had the signature “Ball, A” on the back in fine print. However, in 1927 – long after the alien invasion had been repelled – in an interview with the local newspaper a Mrs Jenny Smith of Buckland admitted that she had invented the Abigail story and had produced the posters not because of any fighting spirit but rather to drum up trade for her ballet school which had been on the verge of financial collapse owing to the war. As is the nature of these things most people decided to disbelieve this version of the events and the legend of Abigail Ball and the Defy Them poster lives on to this...
Old Computer Adverts
I’ve looked at some old adverts from computer magazines before but this time I thought I’d take a look at some old adverts for computers themselves. I’m not entirely sure what sort of magazine would run an advert for a computer boasting about its ability to control missile systems but I suppose if you were buying this magazine for the computer adverts back whenever it was published you probably also had the spare barn to store the machine in and the kind of massive-barn-jealousy from others that may necessitate a ballistic defence system. Are you one of those people who think everything the Apple has ever done has been evil? Six hundred and sixty six dollars and sixty six cents! That’s the dollar value of the beast if my memory of the bible is correct. This Tandy colour computer advert brings back a lot of memories. I never had the computer itself and seeing those magic words “Cuthbert In The Mines” reminds me why. Don’t search for images of that game if you value your eyeballs. A touch-sensitive computer not much different in size from a book. We came a long way from the barn-sized Univac to the Sinclair ZX80 and we’ve come not very far since. Progress! There’s an old rule in computer advertisements: humour and kids sell. It’s a bad rule. And that’s why these computers from AMT using a child Charlie Chaplin led to the company folding with crippling losses six minutes after publication. Possibly. I haven’t checked. The Texas Instruments Home Computer gives you a tutor, an accountant, a librarian, a file clerk, and a pro football team in your own home. This wasn’t a reference to the sort of software that you could get with the computer as many people assumed but a promotion that also helped to house some of society’s most unwanted homeless people. If you’ve still got your original file clerk it could be worth a small fortune on eBay these days. Sure, a computer and acoustic coupler and monitor that fits in a briefcase sounds good but firstly the briefcase was the size of a Fiat 500, and secondly it weighed as much as a Fiat 500 overloaded with Digi-Log machines. At least it was difficult to get mugged. Sources for these images and further inspiration or adverts can be found through the following links: http://www.aresluna.org/attached/computerhistory/ads http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2011/04/04/osborne_1_30_years_old/ http://www.vintagecomputing.com/ http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/vintage-tech-ads/ http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads-1960s http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/topics#exhibition http://www.pcmuseum.ca/computerDetails.asp http://blog.modernmechanix.com/ad-computer-operation-in-real-time/...
Portsmouth, Alien Invasion – Commander Pompey
It wasn’t just through grit, determination, and a steady flow of munitions and inventive weaponry that the people of Portsmouth fought back the alien invasion by The Squirmy Munge in the years following World War I; literature would also play a huge part. However, unlike the writers during the great war who had favoured poetry and depressing the hell out of anyone unlucky enough to come across a passage, in Portsmouth it was to comic books that authors turned and the tales they featured were far more uplifting. Many comic strips and characters blossomed in this period in history and one of the most popular of them all was Commander Pompey. Always accompanied by his scientist sidekick Southsea Belle the commander engaged in both defending the city from The Squirmy Munge and taking the fight directly to the enemy in any of its hideouts on the moon, under the sea, or in the hills. Of course, he wouldn’t be a true Portsmouth hero if there wasn’t a little dig at the city’s neighbours down the coast every now and then...
Portsmouth Street Games
Last weekend saw Portsmouth Street Games make an appearance in Guildhall Square. For two days we were treated to free runners, roller derby girls, cyclists, live music, and lots of street art from local and national artists. The weather was good, there were plenty of stalls selling arts, crafts, and refreshments, and I think it’s fair to say that fun was had by all who attended. I’ve uploaded the photos I took of the day to my Flickr stream and you can view the full set of images in an album here: Portsmouth Street Games 2014. Here’s a selection of photos to whet your appetite or, alternatively, save you the bother of checking that album out. The “games” element of the weekend featured cyclists, skateboarders, scooters, roller derby, exercising, dancing, and free-running. There were also activities for kids in the way of amusement rides and the chance to do some supervised street art of their own. An area was set aside for a DJ to play music and there was even some live entertainment from local rapper Blessed. For me the biggest draw of the weekend was the street art, co-organised by local legend My Dog Sighs and featuring pieces created over the two days by street artists local and national. A New York subway train was the largest bit of canvas and drew some attention from British Transport Police on the Saturday morning who raised concerns that its presence was irresponsible and could lead to people deciding to spray paint on some of the local rolling stock. What a sad bunch of people they...
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