Airborne

This weekend is "Open House London", where lots of buildings and locations (many of them generally closed to the public) are opened up to visitors.  Today I visited the Markfield Beam Engine and House in Markfield Park, Tottenham.  This museum is generally open at weekends, but they only have steam days a few days per year.  The Open House weekend was an excuse for them to fire up the boilers and get this magnificent old engine running.  When I have time, I shall try and put some photos up on Flickr.

What really caught my attention photographically, though, was the skatepark right next door.  There were lots of Freestyle BMX riders (all male, mostly young but a few older guys) carrying out all kinds of hair raising tricks on their bikes.  I found a good position where I could catch them in the air performing crazy (as it seemed to me) stunts.  I liked this particular shot for the lighting on the rider and the slightly out of focus audience all watching his performance.

I also took a number of shots with a very wide angle lens, getting in close to the riders (very close at times - I'm glad they were good enough not to go over the wall, although it would probably have hurt them a lot more than me!)  I have put up a selection here on Flickr.