London Photos: London life in images by Kim Gilmour

One of the things people are finding harder to do, not only in London but in other cities, is to take photographs in public. Officials ignorant of the law – including some police officers, sometimes seize cameras, force people to delete images or worse, even detain them. The only worse scenario is that this type of thing will actually become legal.
It’s a small step, but I’ve signed Adam Jones’s petition (you can too, if you’re a UK resident or citizen) to ask Downing St to clarify photographers’ rights.

Edit: My mate Mike Slocombe at Urban75 has posted a good guide to
Photographers’ Rights and the Law. Check it out!

I’ve been back in Sydney for the past couple of weeks, sweltering, burning and swatting flies from my face at every given opportunity. I used to wonder why no one had fly screens here as standard until I realised that there are not many flies around. Anyway, I’m back in London now, but here’s a souvenir photo: This view is out of my bedroom window – same view since 1982, although the palm trees were ‘only’ planted around 10-15 years ago and are now very tall indeed.

Parisian morning, July 2004

Another Parisian photo from a couple of weeks ago, taken in Montmatre just after going to Au Grain de Folie vegetarian restaurant. I haven’t had the chance to take too many London ones – I started a new job a couple of weeks ago, too! Luckily the new job is right next to Regent’s Park, although I haven’t been there during lunch yet!

Some thunderstorms on Saturday evening in Paris did little to threaten the quality of our time there last weekend. At just 2 hours and 35 minutes from London Waterloo, Paris is an accessible weekend destination. This was taken on the top floor of the Georges Pompidou centre at around 8.30pm.

We had a brief overnight stopover in Narita City on the way back to London from Sydney. If you fly Japan Airlines on the way to or from Australia and stay overnight in Narita, the cost of the hotel is included in the airfare. It gives you enough time to explore the place in the morning and even during the evening. The temple, colourful fish markets, restaurants and people are some of the highlights. Here are a few pics…

A young woman shelters herself from the scorching sun. And it was only around 10am!

The expansive gardens surrounding Narita Temple are also a good reason to make the short trek from Keisei or Narita City train stations.

Before your eyes deceive you, no, this is not a photo of London! But I’m just back from my hometown of Sydney where it’s supposed to be almost Winter, and yet I still managed to get a little sunburnt there. Today in London it’s pouring with rain, although yesterday (public holiday) the weather was beautiful outside – we took a fun cruise from Westminster to Greenwch and back, and planted some herbs.

While we’re on the subject of long warehouse photos, here’s another one – this is at Amazon.co.uk’s warehouse in Marston Gate (almost in London!) taken last June. Here, the stackers and packers collate the books to be sent out to customers.

This frozen place isn’t Antarctica! It was below freezing in this warehouse and the vast emptiness of it was amazing. Surreal? I can’t really reveal more, but it was all very cool.

Got the Thameslink from London to Brighton last Saturday afternoon; it cost 15 pounds return.

The one above is of one of the amusement machines on the pier. You put a coin into the slot, and you hope that it falls in such a way that the moving tray below will push it over the edge, triggering some of the coins below the tray to fall through the collection box underneath. There are also rubbish prizes stacked on top of the coins, like a Bagpuss brooch.

In my hometown of Sydney, Brighton beach means Brighton-Le-Sands, a pseudo Anglo-Franco name (it’s next to a place called Sans Souci!), a suburb of Sydney I grew up in. Full of drag racing down The Grande Parade, souvlaki, palm trees and, of course, Coles Ramsgate. Confused? Good. So, this is Brighton the real deal, where Lydia and Mr Wickham in Pride and Prejudice went for a dirrty weekend, where my friend N. got exasperated, where my colleague Tim commutes from every day, where people have come for hundreds of years for magic cures to their ills.