Tales of a city
We often hear that London (and its surrounding area) unbalances the island of Britain, and in particular its economy. Perhaps it does. However, London is also one of the really great metropolitan centres of the world, and it is possible to lose oneself in its sights and sounds and the great energy of its people and its culture. I don’t get to do this often, but I always enjoy it when I do.
Here are some fairly random sights from a recent visit. First, we have the view from the London Docklands Light Railway, on its way from London City Airport to Tower Gateway. I have, as you will see, done some editing on this photo to turn it from a fairly ordinary scene into a kind of fantasy.
Docklands
Here is a dwarf’s eye view of Big Ben clock tower, followed by one of Westminster Abbey.
The Palace of Westminster clock tower, containing Big Ben
Westminster Abbey
And here are two London icons, albeit in one case in modernised form. The wonderful telephone box designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, alongside a modern version of London’s traditional Routemaster bus.
London icons
The style of these photos reflects my sense of London as a place of dreams. There are other cities that I love, not least Edinburgh and my own Aberdeen, and of course Dublin, and Paris, and Berlin, and Vienna, and New York – but London is drawn on such a wide canvas that it manages to be, in some ways, the whole world.
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June 22, 2014 at 4:04 am
I tend not to be as highfalutin about HDR and see it’s an end in and of itself. Plus not every b&w works in colour, and definitely not every colour works the other way. I tend to think the 1×1 fits it better for framing.
I like the first, and think you could extend the next few. The last is a tourist shot, its way to busy, crop every thing but the bus and the phone kiosk. Think van Gogh not Gauguin or Monet.
June 22, 2014 at 4:13 am
Can you mask on the phone. The bus the kiosk, the pavement and the traffic light. Lasso the rest then dip the red on the bus and find the 180 of it.
Have you been on the new bus ?.
June 22, 2014 at 1:28 pm
No, haven’t ben on it – but was delighted to see you can hop on and off as in the old days…
June 22, 2014 at 12:58 pm
*The style of these photos reflects my sense of London as a place of dreams*.
“With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else. (Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities)
June 22, 2014 at 1:29 pm
Wonderful quote!
June 23, 2014 at 9:00 am
Speaking as a Londoner, these are evocative pics. However, in relation to the merits of London, do you have an inner Boswell/Johnson thing going on here, seeing as Boswell lived in Scotland? 🙂 GG Scott also designed the Tate Modern (formerly Bankside Power Station) and Battersea PS – notice the similarities?. I am a pedantic, ergo feel obliged to point out that Big Ben is, in fact, the bell within what is now the Elizabeth Tower (the old Clock Tower).
June 23, 2014 at 9:56 am
Thank you – and always keen to be corrected, I have edited the text accordingly.