London Photos: London life in images by Kim Gilmour

Got to scan a few B&W negatives I did with my temperamental Pentax K1000 tonight – they’re of Little India (Southall). Come back tomorrow and I should have some pics up. Don’t know how they’ve come out yet…

Back in May I mentioned the Hayward Gallery’s new photo exhibitions. Well, they’re open now until September: Jacques Henri Lartigue and Photography and the Death of the Portrait.

Check out Rion’s pictures of her London trip. These are my sort of photos!

I’m still around – business will resume normal opening hours shortly! Expect a few photos next week, but London may be conspicuously absent…

From 24 June to 5 September, the Hayward Gallery in London will hold a new photographic exhibtion called Photography and the Death of the Portrait. It aims to explore whether “the notions of portraiture as an expression of the inner self through external appearance” still holds true in an age of genetic engineering and mass media. What this means when it comes to the photographs themselves I don’t know. The Hayward exhibition is accompanied by a major showing of the French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue, the first of its kind in Britain. I presume the admission fee covers both shows.

Also – and we’re kicking ourselves because we can’t make it – the first major photography fair in London will be held, called, funnily enough, Photo London. The website has a list of exhibitors and is timed to coincide with the annual Christies and Sotheby’s auctions. Fifty galleries will have stands showing photography, film and video from artists including Man Ray, Bill Brandt, Julia Margaret Cameron, Cindy Sherman and Andreas Gursky. The fair runs from 20-23 May.

Don’t worry. This is not going to be one of those weblogs crammed with gratuitous cat photographs. But you’ve got to admit, she was a cute cat. Saw another cute one later that evening while watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Unlike the nameless cat in that movie, this cat had a name: Tosca. There is another similar looking cat on the Web called Tosca too.

Went to see the Bill Brandt photography exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum this afternoon. Six pounds. Highly recommended. I’d seen an enormous retrospective of his at New York’s International Center of Photography back in 1999, where I was first introduced to his work. This exhibition didn’t seem as enormous, but it’s certainly thorough enough and you’ll probably spend a good 40 minutes in there. When I first saw his work, I wasn’t aware that he used his family connections to gain access to posh British houses, and that he often asked family and friends to pose for pictures.

Read the rest of this entry »

Funny signs, interesting street observations and “found items” at Funky Pancake.

Someone came to this site through Google after typing in something about what the weather’s going to be like over summer. Well, if this report is anything to go by, things aren’t going to be good for Polaroid Manipulations!

“With just a few exceptions, we are likely to see rain and grey skies for the next three or four months. The bright spots will include a warmer-than-expected Easter in a couple of weeks plus a mini heatwave at the end of May.”

If this is your first time here (and came via Yahoo!), hello! You might want to check out what is here…

This is a photo of the London Millennium Bridge taken with an ancient Polaroid SX-70 camera bought for L7 off eBay. The emulsion stays soft for hours after taking a photo and can be manipulated using sticks or anything sharp that you can find lying around. So there is no Photoshop in this picture.

More Polaroid manipulations of London can be viewed at the Polaroid Manipulations Category.

At right are other categories and images to see here – some of them might take a little while to load, though! You can also search for images at the right hand side. (Look up stuff like “snow”!)

Might take some time out tomorrow to take some photos, but it’s so overcast and drab! I’m just back from seeing Australian band Powderfinger play at the Hammersmith Apollo here in London. Everyone had camera phones and held up the phones during “classic songs” so their friends could hear. I wonder if anyone posted to their weblogs during the show? And does this kind of thing really annoy you in excess or is it just me…