copy of the copy of the copy

I've got a good sleep all night so I woke up around 9.30am with a few ideas what to do and where to go. Not in a hurry so I ate the breakfast and did a few things like write the postcards. Oh aye, I' m little bit obsessed with the old time habit for sending a postcards instead of sending a couple of posts. I quit Instagram a couple of months ago and I didn' t miss the activity a lot. Basically there is nothing to miss especially when you have 99 followers :-D I' m only missing her :-D Smartphone is just phone again for me. But ... turn the page ...

My first steps led me into the Barbican because it' s a quite good example of brutalist architecture. The mixture of tower blocks/terraces blocks is really interesting if you have a chance to see the area during the sunny day like me. Maybe late afternoon hours are much better during the summer. I met couple of tourists  there and saw a few amateur photographers how they are trying to do some pictures. To be honest it' s not so easy to take a picture of tall buildings like that. Imagine more than 30 floors+ . Simply you need a solid distance to take a good picture of them or you have to find an interesting angle or ...an interesting point of view...

Of course at the end I found it (by my subjective criteria) after one hour or so. It took a lot of time for me because I have already tried to do some pictures at Barbican Lake terrace.  I was not satisfied with them so promptly deleted all of them. Anyway the terrace is a great place for sitting or relaxing if the day is so beautiful and you have nothing to do.

But back to my first frame in extras for today. Simply I walked over the Beech Street via pedestrian' s footbridge which leads you to the stairscase down into the Barbican TUBE Station (Circle/Hammersmith&City/Metropolitan line). Frame was ideal but I was not satisfied due to the empty space so I started to take only the pictures including the silhouettes of pedestrians who were going up and down. To be honest, it' s not so easy to press the button in the right moment. I took (maybe) 15-20 pictures to find three of them like candidates for the "perfect shot". It was almost 12.30 pm when I get on the train and was heading to the Sloane Square Station (Circle/District line).

My next "target" was "Saatchi Gallery" for modern art (situated at Chelsea neighbourhood). I have never been there so I was not sure what I should expect. Must say that I like the neighbourhood but fully recognize that "Chelsea" is sweet spot address for posh people. I don' t want to know the prices of the houses there. Sorry guys, don' t tell me that :-D

First I was trying to taste a little bit the exhibition "From selfie to expression". OMG. Guess what did I see inside? I' ve just witnessed the reality of presence. Really. Again, I stood inside the exhibition where you have simply no prints. I understand that fact right here because the gallery is for free and there was a sponsorship by HUAWEI brand. So you should find (again) big LCD connected to HUAWEI smartphones on the walls. You could even touch the screen of smartphone and reason was simply to give a like to concrete art. Rembrandt' s selfie has got 8745 likes at that time if I remember the number correctly. It doesn' t matter. Some Asian tourist next to me was  using his high-end DSLR to take a picture of Basquiat' s selfie-reproduction displayed on Samsung LCD  which simply made me thinking : "Damn who we are?What we are doing inside the galleries? Are we seriously taking a pictures of the copies for the reason of collecting our own (and another) copy of the copies to transform them into the personal cloud or external harddrive and after all just showing them to our friends via Instagram/Facebook or any other account. Ufff, I ' ve got a headache with all those thoughts and questions :-) But I' m not going to judge anyone by following this modern smart-era' s habit/trend because I met the other side of the smart art inside the gallery too.

So if you will be visiting this gallery do not miss the work of Daniel Rozin. He is doing quite great interactive art like mixture of self-developed software, web camera and displaying art. He got a two great pieces inside the gallery.

And I can' t forget another name, the photographer Alma Haser who made huge impression on me. Her photographs simply displayed pure creativity while using the photographic medium like no others. Well worth to see her work too.

But my main point of interest was more than the serious act of photojournalism. The exhibition named LIBYA: A human marketplace by Mexican photographer Narciso Contreras . If you don' t want to know the truth or you don' t want to see the darkside of the human market in post-Gaddafi' s Libya, simply don' t go for that. Mr. Contreras entered the Libya three times for the project and his strong message about the issue is not so nice message in most of the aspects. His photoreport simply showing the facts about the growing business with illegal migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who are involving in brutal human trafficking. That' s the Libya in these days. Really strong content of the exhibition is reflecting the brutal truth. No more words needed.

After all I was trying to reach Photographer' s gallery near Oxford Circus Tube station (Bakerloo/Central/Victoria line) in time. Honestly it was not good idea from my side after visit of Contreras' exhibition. Almost after 20 minutes I left the gallery because I found the fact that any exhibition inside the gallery at that time couldn' t match my expectations. Don' t get me wrong. The gallery is worth to visit. I' m pretty sure.

It was 4pm so I started to walk through the Oxford and Regent Street. Completely different reality than Edinburg for example ;) The mass of people which I could brand the shopping nation at all, uff. This human procession led me into the idea to use a DSLR for a while and I promptly started to search some interesting spots (signs) for street photography. I found one great spot on Regent Street. Another photographer spotted me while I was trying to take a right frame with my 50 mm prime lens. Of course I was standing in the middle of the road ;) The truth is that his DSLR looks much more professional than mine and I recognized that he was using zoom lens at the time. He simply asked me what I' trying to shoot. I explained to him what is my goal. On the other hand I shared with him my personal opinion that the activity should takes more than 5, 10 or 20 minutes until the moment when I could say "I got it." After that small talk beetween us, he stood next to me and he started to do the same. It took only 3 minutes  (approx 35 frames from his side) when he told me : " I got it!" and left me on my position alone. I hope so he got it :-D Because he sounds so-so confident.
And me? It was not so easy (see the extras) and takes slightly less than  20 minutes from my side when I have to say : "I got it!" By the way Regent street was so busy this afternoon due to the women' s cyclists ' race so soon I passed Picadilly Circus, I was trying to escape the crowd :-D It was right time to go into the Tube transport system again.

Unfortunatelly it was not succesful mission at all. While I was doing the pictures inside the stations I met one lady (TUBE working staff) who passed around me and she was seriously asking me if I have a permission to do that. I was surprised by that kind of question and started the conversation with her. Soon I noticed that the reason for her worrying voice tone was "terrorist act at London Bridge". After all I promptly stopped that activity and took the train to Tottenham Court Road Station (Central/Northern line). It was right time to go up into the streets again.

First at all it was really surprise for me when I've passed around the bus stop which looks like "educational version of environmental advertisement"  dedicated to air pollution in the London' s  city centre. Seriously clever stuff guys. Thumbs up ;-) So after a bit of surprise I walked through the Seven Dials (that link Covent Garden to Soho) and was reaching the Trafalgar Square soon. Found a really funny traffic lights there while heading to  the south again. I walked around the river Thames at the end of my journey. I was there right in time and have been able to take a couple of late afternoon's "hard light" pictures.

When the night was slowly coming into the city around 9.30 pm I found the sweet spot for taking an unusual picture of St. Paul' s Cathedral. I was focusing on details a lot so there was no surprise for me that two young ladies spotted me while walking into the One New Change shopping complex and quickly ran into my position to take some Insta-picture to share (trust me you could recognize the INSTA-generation easily). I' ve just smiling and observing them how they were dealing with the composition both. No, they didn' t take my third plan but it was alright by my opinion. So I hope that they were collecting solid number of likes for their copies of my copy of the reflecting copy of the St. Paul' s Cathedral in the glass and railings :-D

They posted it.
I posted it.

Thank you London ;-)

It was interesting city-break for me. Completely different world than Edinburgh. It was good to be out of my comfort zone again.