Day 25: King Kong

Taken with Blackberry 9700

London 13th November 2010

Guess what Mr King Kong is made of out?

Day 24: Ladbroke Grove

Taken with Canon IXUS 70

London 12th Nov 2010

Day 23: Seagull

Canon Ixus 70

London 11th Nov 2010

I have been wanting to donate and get a poppy for a couple of days but I couldn't find any!!! I thought they would be more available than that.. The closest thing to peace I could find was a seagull... It does look a bit like a dove. No?

Hope everyone paid their respect with the  2-minute of silence today! 

Day 22: Fight the Cuts

Taken with Nikkie 

London 10th Nov 2010

This afternoon, around 30,000 students and lecturers took the street of Westminster to protest against sharp increase in university tuition fee.

What started off as a peaceful demonstration turned into a rather violent clash between students and police.  I wasn't part of the march but I happened to be nearby around 2pm, when the demonstation seemed to be at its peak. It took me a long time to get to Tate Britain, having to take the south bank route to get to that end of Millbank. As I passed by the Conservative HQ, there was a large crowd of protestors and it started to look a bit out of control. I thought they had only started a placard bonfire there and was surprised that they were allowed to; let alone an hour or so later they had almost taken siege of the building.

The Met Police really did underestimate the risk of this demonstation, which was extremely alarming. Critics say this may have been due to the criticism of their handling Ian Tomlinson's death last year during the G20 Summit protest (so they had a softer approach this year?). But 200 unarmed police dealing with a potential risk from a crowd of 30,000 people (no matter how peaceful most of them are)... let's look at the maths here! There are always people abusing and taking advantage of the situation. Even though, I know, people tend to have a negative thing with the police, they are there for a reason... to prevent these kind of things from happening/getting worse.

Fortunately most of the people attending the protest came with peaceful intention so things did not spark out of control any further. 

The turn out was massive, showing how much students really care and want to be heard but the incidence that took place really left a sad, sad mark over Britain. 

Day 21: Bedroom

All taken with Nikkie 

London 9th Nov 2010

I'm coming down with something. My throat has been hurting like hell since yesterday, so in order to stay healthy & to be in shape for my busy social life later on this week, I didn't roam the streets for photos... As I stay in I thought I would take picture of all the little things I like lying around the bedroom and put them into a collage. Photoshop neophyte... I never believed in photoshop but hey, opinions always change. 

Day 20: Metal Bird Upside Down

Taken with Nikkie

London Nov 8th 2010

Day 19: ... of a Portrait

Taken with Nikkie

London Nov 8th 2010

I was at the National Portrait Gallery today, one of my favourite art galleries in London. I finally had time to take quite a few photos.. but somehow I decided on this one as photo of the day.

This portrait of Kate Winslet was taken by Jason Bell, who was inspired by the some of the 120,000 influential British men and women living and working in New York, and so he began a project that eventually turned into has a small exhibition at the NPG called "An Englishman in New York". The pictures were all BW, with captions from the sitter about how they identify themselves ... more American or more English. Most of them miss the sense of humour... something that really made me nod in agreement.

I like most of his photos, but this was definitely my favourite... There's something "je ne sais quoi" & very British about Kate that he captured very well. Just beautiful!

I love portraits, either photographs or paintings.  Because people are interesting especially when they are not (really) posing. As my fascination for photography grows, I reckon I will be more of a portrait photographer.