Recidivist

No more posting from WordPress. Stopped. Deleted a gazillion posts from the early years of this Tumbl because they contained links to things that no longer exists - 'posterous' was one of them.

When I took the photograph I thought the woman was one of the flaneurs who had gathered at Piccadilly Circus. And she could be, and very probably is – but she has a camera, and a good one. So maybe she was a photographer and not a flaneur. Or both, a person can be both.

There is no collective noun for flaneur. It is not surprising. The archetype flaneur is a solitary observer of the human condition. What would happen if two flaneur dressed so similarly that they might be twins, and then met by chance? Would they bridle? Would they laugh at the unlikeliness of it? I can almost guarantee that they would laugh together because that is part and parcel of being a…

I have been shooting with Nikon D3000, but I have also looking at the photographs I took in India in 2010 with the D60, the D3000’s close sibling. First I ran this image – of a family at Agra zoo – through DxO PureRaw 4. DxO PureRaw 4 pulls out a lot of detail. It does a good job and gives a certain crispness to the processed images. Then, because the pixel count of the D60 is quite low…

He’s from NJ and lives in Nuremberg and feels at home in the clothing of the ’30s through to the ’50s when things were a bit more analogue. Shot with Fuji X100F

A flâneur is someone who wanders without a specific destination, acting as a detached, philosophical observer of modern life, crowds, and society. Nothing in that definition explicitly says that such a person has to dress in a particular way. And yet the notion goes hand in hand with someone who cares about their dress, and may well feel more at home in a more analogue time. A more analogue…

I give up. I mean, really, what if anything is lacking in the technical aspects of the Nikon D60 with 35mm f1.8 lens with which I took this photograph in 2010? What has changed since 2008 when Nikon released the camera? Well, one thing that has changed is the post-processing software. It has made it possible to pull out a more detailed and striking image. The pre-processor I used to process…

Out walking with a friend yesterday, we came across a group of people that I wanted to photograph. I started from further out and walked in, and eventually one of the group put a card with lyrics in front of me and I sang along with the group. The upbeat happiness was infectious and I was singing along happily. I like faces smiling at me. And considering I approached pointing a camera at the…

There were a lot of people wearing hats at the hat event outside the Tate Modern. I found myself interested in some people and not in others. It wasn’t just a matter of what they were wearing but of how they presented. Some people seem to invite people in, and others seemed to present such a strong appearance that I felt I had no part in their presentation. This particular man was very nice. I…

What is that expression? He is not exactly looking askance. It is not a look of suspicion, mistrust, or disapproval. But there is something analytical about his expression – not a unifying look that connects with the other. Rather, a standing back and analysing. Of course the expression is frozen by the camera, but I remember this as being his countenance. And it fits, given that this was at…

I think this man has the idea. Apart from his hat, he is wearing unremarkable clothes, unlike some people who were dressed head to toe in stuff. There was for example, someone dressed like Neil Armstrong when he stepped onto the Moon, head to toe in a white padded spacesuit, with a helmet and backpack. Writing the word ‘spacesuit’ makes me think how we can date the origin of this word because…

I am guessing that someone(s) made a play on words with ‘catwalk’ when they came up with the name Hat Walk. It took place on Saturday 10th May and I had heard about it but expected it would be a few people posing. There were hundreds of hat-bearing people there outside the Tate Modern in London, and a fair smattering of photographers. I had my Fuji X100F with me, and it has a fixed 35mm lens.…

This is a Syringa vulgaris ‘Sensation’. Syringa vulgaris alone is the common lilac plant. I knew the ‘Sensation’ was a lilac from the shape of the four-petal flowers and the shape of the panicle. A panicle is a botanical term that describes a loosely branched, compound cluster of stalked flowers arranged along a stem. The flowers at the base are the first to bloom, which is why towards the…

This was April 2025 and the man in the photo had been convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance in breach of the Air Navigation Order 2016 and was appealing against conviction. His case went to the Appeal Court, where he lost his appeal. He had a background in disruptive actions, having been previously convicted In 2022, along with five other Just Stop Oil protestors, of causing a…

This is a view looking along the walkway on the south bank of the Thames, beneath Blackfriars Bridge. Above are the steel girders of the bridge. The area known as Blackfriars is on the north bank of the River Thames and is located within the City of London. The City of London itself is a ‘city within a city’, and is the financial district of London proper. And as such it has special privileges…