It has been hard to find ‘perfect’ days this past June. It started too cool and too dull, then in the space of a few days transformed itself to an extreme heatwave. Temperatures hit 35 Celsius and the high humidity made life in London pretty tough. Such is a our changing climate, unfortunately, and England wasn’t built for heat.
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As photographers we are trying to convey three-dimensional scenes and objects on a flat two-dimensional surface, whether paper or screen, and we can use similar tricks to those of the Renaissance artists. Lines that converge on a point close to the horizon (‘leading lines’) create a sense of distance, as do receding objects.
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Whitstable is renowned for its sunsets, said to have inspired JMW Turner. Last night’s coincided with low tide, the wet shingle reflecting the colours in the sky.
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I have been travelling on the ‘Tube’, the London Underground, all my life. Walking through the Tube’s many passageways you often pass doors and grilles that are locked shut. Have you ever wondered what is behind them? I recently had a glimpse into this hidden world on a tour that took us into areas of Charing Cross station normally closed to the public.
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While May has been green this year, we haven’t always had spring-like weather; quite the contrary! Some days have felt as chilly as a mild day in winter, while towards the end of the month we had a heatwave that would have felt fairly extreme even in August, with temperatures topping 34 degrees Celsius, breaking – no, smashing – all records.
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Hull has had something of a poor reputation in England in recent years, but that seems to be changing. A city voted the ‘worst place to live in the UK’ in 2005 became the country’s City of Culture in 2017 and last year its city centre was named one of the coolest places to live by the Sunday Times. From worst to coolest; that’s quite a turnaround!
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Sometimes it's easy to forget that 'small is beautiful'. Also, how much of that beauty can be found very close to home. There may be a whole wide world out there, but that world begins as soon as we step out of our own back (or front) door.
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While significant parts of Hull were bombed during WWII, and many lives tragically lost, its Old Town survived and has been well preserved. The historic buildings and cobbled streets make it an ideal stand-in for Victorian or Georgian London. These streets have been transformed many times by film and TV studios for productions including The Crown, Victoria and Blitz.
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On Crosby beach north of Liverpool 100 cast-iron, life-size figures stand looking out to sea. The figures each weigh 650 kilos and are made from casts of the artist Anthony Gormley’s own body.
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We have had plenty of sunny days this past April; however quite often the warm sun was tempered by a fresh wind. But we have also had some almost summer-like days; indeed, on one day quite early in the month the temperature reached 26 degrees in London and that IS summer weather.
