I’ve just completed a redesign for The Alliance’s website. The new site has been made using WordPress and is based on the Smart theme by ThinkUp. It’s been heavily customised using a child theme and some extra bits in the functions.php file. The site is fully responsive and has been tested on various screen sizes, platforms and devices. It’s been a very nice project to work on.

A second graffiti by Loretto has just appeared in Clapham – on Landor Road, just round the corner from Clapham North tube. This one depicts a man and woman sitting at a table, but the woman’s head has turned into a TV screen menu which the man is selecting from using a remote control. I love the cat sitting under the man’s chair.

Click on the image to see it larger (and to see a close-up).

A new Banksy-like graffiti has appeared just off Clapham High Street. The work is the creation of graffiti artist Loretto and depicts the evolution of man from the apes to the job centre – a great commentary on the current political situation.

Two days ago I went to Polzeath to take some panoramic photos. My main objective was to create a wide image to make into a large print (I still haven’t processed all of the photos yet and only done a couple of test stitches) but while I was there I made a 360° panorama for my website.

Very stupidly I totally forgot to shoot one section of the panorama, but I managed to repair this by using two of the photos I’d taken for one of the print shots. If you know where to look you can just see where the patch is, but I’m still quite pleased with the result. In my defence, I was in a position on the edge of a 10 metre drop where I couldn’t walk round the tripod as I panned the camera, but even so it was a silly mistake and I was lucky to be able to salvage the image.

Yesterday I went for a walk with a friend along the towpath of the Regent’s Canal from Paddington Basin to the start of the Islington tunnel. Here’s a few of the photos I took on the way. Read more…

I’ve just added some new panoramas of Brixton to my website. These include two of Windrush Square, two in Market Row (one of Brixton’s covered markets) and one on the corner of Electric Avenue and Atlantic Road. These add to the older ones I made a couple of years ago of the Brixton Windmill and the walled garden in Brockwell Park, which I’ve remade to a higher resolution.

Read more…

I was interviewed today by the Spitalfields Life website about the photographs of Billingsgate Market which I published recently. While I was going to the meeting I stopped to take some photos around St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate church. The most unusual feature is a Turkish Baths, just outside the church courtyard, dating back to 1895. It looks very out of place surrounded as it is by modern high-rise office blocks, although today it’s run as Turkish restaurant. Read more…

I had a trip to Cambridge at the weekend which included going up the tower of Great St Mary’s church. It was quite a climb up a very narrow spiral staircase. Luckily there were plenty of places where you could stop to get your breath and let people going in the opposite direction pass.

Looking North

In Wandsworth Road on the border between Clapham and Battersea there’s a very faded old ghost sign for Hovis. Next to this there used to be a more recent sign for ‘TV Audio Video Repair’. This is now fast disappearing behind a trellis full of climbing roses.

This is a series of portraits I made when I was a student at the London College of Printing in 1975. There were about five of us involved in this project. We left a sign outside the college inviting anyone to walk in off the street and have their photograph taken for free. Over the three days that the project ran for these are the people who came in when I was ‘on duty’. Read more…