Ben .....

..... the chewing gum artist.

Today has been my last day down south for this visit so I decided to spend it having a cultural day out. First stop was Getty Images to have a look at the great Bert Hardy exhibition that they currently have on display, then I took the short walk over to the other side of Oxford street to have a look around the current exhibitions on at the Photographers Gallery.

After stopping for lunch in Soho I had a look around the National portrait gallery before heading over the river for a stroll along the South Bank.. It's been a lovely sunny day in Central London and the crowds of tourists and sightseers were out in force. I eventually arrived at Tate Modern and took a few photos of people outside.

As I crossed over the Millennium bridge I spotted Ben producing one of his artworks ( blip ). Ben has been painting his miniature acrylic artworks on blobs of chewing gum on the streets of London for about 15 years now. For the last 10 years he has been working his way through painting over the blobs of chewing gum on the millennium bridge, but unfortunately the council cleaned them all off when he was three quarters of the way through completing so he has had to restart that project. You can find out more about Ben's work here.

For the last week or so I've been revisiting previous blip subjects and today it was the turn of Prince. I blipped Prince back in April when he was just four months old and as I was passing Hyde Park Corner today decided to call along to the burger van and say hello. Prince and his owner James were just packing up for the day but kindly agreed to pose for a photo for me, I've put that photo in a set here along with a few others from today.

I've had a lovely few days down south and have just arrived back in rainy Yorkshire. I could have blipped any of the photos in the set, but today's blip is .....


..... Ben the chewing gum artist.