an untrained eye's photostream  

May 18th, 2012 - Madrid, Spain

I confess that during my recent peregrinations around Europe, I have become increasingly fed up with the apparently ever-increasing numbers of people dressed up in (usually extraordinarily cheap and tacky) costumes that seem to infest every public space in every major city. In Berlin, I couldn't get a decent shot of the Brandenburg Gate that didn't feature Darth Vader, Woody from Toy Story or any one of a number of Disney characters. And Madrid was full of the same characters, although generally there they were shorter than their German counterparts. I'm not sure I would have expected the face behind Mickey Mouse to look like this, though.

May 18th, 2012 - Madrid, Spain

I always say that if I come back from two or three days spent indulging my passion for street photography with one image with which I'm truly happy, then the trip has been a success. Well, I came back from a long weekend in Madrid yesterday, and on this occasion this is that image.

I could say that I wish the man were half a step further on, so that we could see the outline of his silhouetted back against the bright wall behind, but that would be picky, even for a perfectionist like me. And given that I tracked this old man for ten or fifteen minutes as he shuffled up and down the streets around Plaza Mayor before catching this totally serendipitous shot, I should probably just learn to be happy with what I've got for once.

Update May 30th 2012 : Last week my friend Rachel very kindly chose to put this photograph on the front page of the Utata website. But much more than that, she also wrote a wonderful prose poem to accompany the image - so wonderful, that it seems only right and proper to reproduce it here :

"A man should follow his heart.

If in his twenties he falls desperately in love with someone from the far side of the world, he should go find that soul mate.

If in his thirties he has a sudden zeal to have the robots, from his childhood comic books, tattooed on to his shins, he should just do it.

If in his forties he decides he needs a bicycle, or tropical fish, or if he decides he needs to bring home tropical fish, in fairground style plastic bags, hanging from the handlebars of his bicycle, he should go for it.

If in his fifties he decides to live in a treehouse, his children should not stop him.

If in his sixties he wants to wear a flat cap and a suit, even on the hottest days, just as his father did, then why not?

If in his seventies he learns to play the accordion, the flugelhorn, the bodhrán, or all three of them, all at once, let him.

Hope that by his eighties he’ll have worked all this out for himself.

If at any point in this long and adventurous life, he should like to spend long days alone, on foreign streets, accompanied only by a camera, waiting in the perfect place, for the perfect moment…

he should do so."

(Copyright Rachel Irving, 2012)

April 7th, 2012 - Berlin, Germany

Best lightboxed.

April 8th, 2012 - Berlin, Germany

This was taken through the work "Rack with 6 standing panes", part of the biggest of the many exhibitions currently being shown in Berlin to celebrate the 80th birthday this year of Gerhard Richter. Richter's works are so rich and varied it is quite breathtaking, and this exhibition in particular, at the Neue Nationalgalerie is a god-send to those who, like me, enjoy observing how visitors interact with the works almost as much as the works themselves - or at least, it would have been, had I remembered to charge the battery of my M9. I ended up falling back on my old D-LUX 4, but even she was only able to give me a handful of images before her battery ran out too.

January 14th, 2012 - London, England

Sometimes I want to post a photograph simply because I went to tell the story that goes with it. This is an example. I must have passed this man four or five times in the space of an hour, and every time I did so I began to shape, as discreetly as I could manage, to take a picture of him, before deciding better of it. The fact was that he gave off the sort of aura that says "Don't mess with me. And don't even think about photographing me." He chain-smoked. He wore the most impressively shiny pair of heavy black jackboots I've ever seen. And most intimidating of all, he seemed to be reciting some sort of menacing mantra to himself, over and over and over. Nevertheless, something about him kept drawing me back, until the moment when I got close enough to him to take this picture - and to hear exactly what it was he was reciting over and over. "Nobody knows," he growled. "How cold my toes. Are growing."