Gloves and Mittens Gone AWOL -No 18

Well-dressed Bin

It's always pleasing to come across pieces of street furniture that make that little extra bit of effort to stand out. Here something as mundane as a rubbish bin (or trasj can if you are American) is turned into a "cup butler" no less! And as well as being rather fun it's a clever ploy –for by "humanising" the bin –giving it hands and a bow-tie– it probably has greater effect! It may not have the added feature of a bin I once came across in Washington DC that UTTERED "Thank you!" everytime you deposited a bit of rubbish, but this is surely the most smartly dressed bin around...?

Location: Berlin, Germany

Reflections in Puddles

I have found that one of the most exciting and interesting times totake pictures is after it has rained. Water on stone surfaces reflects light in fascinating ways, often creating patterns and colours that are not seen when it is dry. And I am particularly attracted to puddles or pools of rainwater because they can suddenly become exciting paintings, framed by their own circumference, reflecting wild sunsets or humdrum buildings and forcing you to look at the world from a slightly different angle. Here puddles in a car-park reflect the facade of nearby buildings but seem almost to create new little worlds of their own, like portals into the deep.

Location: Oslo, Norway

Night Train

An empty train waiting to depart at Paddington Station late one night. Nothing special about that, except that Paddington, of all London stations, is always a thrill to visit –a true and vast cathedral to rail travel. And it's so spacious that one never feels crowded there, except perhaps when busy commuter trains spill out their passengers of a morning. At night, it's quieter (but never still) and in places a little bit ghostly, but I love to walk along the platforms and imagine the many destinations the trains standing there will pass through. The lighting is alluring -in places, such as against the huge curved ceilings it is blue, like a nightclub. You only see a tiny bit of it here, but I like this picture because it seems to catch something of the essence of what makes train stations so alluring and romantic (at least for me!) I like the variety of lines and the mix of light and shadow and particularly the long stretch of windows along the sleek side of the empty train. All aboard!

Location: London, England

Gloves and Mittens Gone AWOL -No 17

With a long-lasting cold spell having settled over Northern Europe, it is inevitable that gloves and mittens are once again taken out and used on a daily basis. Inevitably too, as in winter past, some of them will stay outside, finding their way to branches of trees, the top of posts or the spiked railings of the witer city. Here a bright but lonely mitten keeps guard –or perhaps looks out for its companion. At least the railing is kept warm!

Location: Oslo, Norway

Street Scene at Sunset

After a long spell of absense I have returned! The world has changed much for us all since I last posted, but life goes on, and soon Christmas will be upon us. Therefore, I've chosen a somehat festive photograph of my local neighbourhood as my first post for a while; a street scene and a sunset. Plenty more to follow!

Location: Oslo, Norway

Winter sun

With the sun low in the sky during much of the winter (at least here in Oslo) one sometimes experiences almost blinding dazzledness (–or dazzling blindness?) when the shafts of sunlight sweep down city streets. Here the sun catches the otherwise humdrum wooden boardings around a building under renovation, creating a wonderful golden wall that has a kind of magic quality to it. On an cold day like the one the picture was taken, this glow gives a kind of warmth –at least inside; and walking along the boarding becomes an exalted experience!

Location: Oslo, Norway

Train Departure

The Amtrak train leaves the Main Street station of Richmond on a damp autumn afternoon, crawling like a segmented snake into the mist. Above, a bewildering mass of wires, cables and lines. Anyone who knows me knows that one of my greatest passions is trains and travelling on them. They can sometimes be elusive things to capture interestingly in a photograph though. What I liked here was the fact that we see so much of the train because the track is curved at this point and each carriage (or car, if you prefer) is shown at a slightly different angle to the next one, giving the picture a more interesting slant. The man about to cross the tracks gives the picture a human dimension, contrasting with the frightening technological aspect of the lines and cables above.

Location: Richmond, Virginia, USA

Gloves and Mittens Gone AWOL -No 15

Yes, with autumn now upon us and temperatures dropping daily like the leaves from the trees, we once again come across single gloves and mittens that have taken upon themselves to wander freely, away from their owners, to seek a better (or at least different) existence in parks, on benches and at street corners. This rather dirty specimen has at least found a place in the sun...

Location: Oslo, Norway

Blue Reflection

I like buildings that are not afraid to be bold with colour. Just because the material is conventional and the form functional, there is no need for greyness –which is sadly the default "colour" of so many modern structures. This particular building is a sports hall, and its setting by a large pond gives its colour the opportunity to reflect marvellously in the water, creating an exciting, vibrant, even slightly unreal look to what could so easily be a humdrum setting. The blue of the building and sky is nicely complimented by the green grass and water plants, and only a tiny splash of red (the sign) breaks the two-colour scheme. Just coming across something like this made me feel good; for all I know, that was its function. It certainly makes for a rather nice photograph, which is why I'm posting it here!

Location: Oslo, Norway

Brick Buildings

The late afternoon sun strikes warm rays against these fabulous brick facades in Lübeck. Unlike the facades of many other buildings in Germany these do not seem at all intimidating, even though they loom high over the lowly pedestrian. As well as the fabulous colour I like the way the picture is divided into a man-made part (the buildings) and a natural part (the sky). Also, the warmth of a particular moment in time seems to have been captured well here.

Location: Lübeck, Germany

Tower Bridge

This is probably not only the most photographed bridge in the world, but one of the most photographed man-made motives of any kind, and no prizes for guessing that we are in London. For some reason, many people insist on calling this London Bridge –for few things symbolise London more (well.. Big ben, The London Eye, Nelson's Column...). BUT, of course this label is wrong; for this is TOWER Bridge –named for its proximity to the Tower of London and for its two distinctive towers. It's one of the most distinctive bridges anywhere and it was a true delight to fulfil recently a little dream I've had of walking across it. But it's perhaps best seen from a distance from the one of the riverbanks, and if you're very lucky you might see it with the two halves of the bridge's road raised. Here, however, I have captured the bridge –as I try to do with all London bridges– with a bright red double-decker smack in the middle! On a purely technical level I realize I should have captured more of the sky above the bridge to make this picture more balanced, but sadly I was too awe-struck by the sight of the bridge itself that all my composition knowledge went for a burton. Sorry!

Location: London, England

Gloves and Mittens Gone AWOL -No 14

Yet another glove takes an unapproved vacation, and this one finds a spot in the sun to stretch out and soak in the warmth of summer...

Location: Oslo, Norway

Flowers in the Park

It's time for some colour. Spring, though late arriving, has rapidly blossomed all over in recent weeks and it's always an exciting time to photograph the new life that appears in flowerbeds throughout the city. Here, we're down low, almost at ground level to appreciate these blooms in Oslo's magnificent Frogner Park.

Location: Oslo, Norway

Postboxes and Creature

I have posted pictures of mailboxes here before. I have even posted pictures of Danish mailboxes before. But I have never posted one that includes a crocodile -or is that some kind of other creature down there? (Incidentally, being British, I'd usually call them postboxes but then there would have been too many "posts" in my first sentence. Whatever. The boxes are cute even though they've been desecrated with inane graffiti. I hope the creature, whatever it is, bit the perpetrators sharply on their shins. I never found what exactly it doing there, but I am very fond of idiosyncratic little bits of street furniture like this.

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Remembering Notre Dame

Like most people, I too was horrified and saddened to see Notre Dame cathedral go up in flames earlier this week. I am glad that the damage done by the fire is less than first feared and that the magnificent cathedral will rise again. I have fond memories of visiting Notre Dame on my first visit to Paris back in 1984 –in fact it was the very first place I visited when I arrived. I was travelling about Europe on Interrail, excitedly discovering countries and cities and the wonders of the continent for the first time. My camera back then was a Kodak Ektralite 600 which I had received for my fifteenth birthday two years before and which I happily snapped away at on my travels. I didn't really know much about photography back then, otherwise I would of course have centred my picture of Notre Dame properly. I can only think I wanted to get the people in the foreground in, or perhaps the motorbike with its GB sticker on (I was not the only English person in Paris, it seems). I do remember being blown away by the cathedral, which I up until then knew only from films, and awe-struck by its beautiful stained-glass windows and hushed interior. I hope to be able to return one day, for I am certain the cathedral will rise again. When that happens I will photograph it again, more professionally and with more understanding of composition, but no less awe than when I first saw it at the age of 17.

Location: Paris, France

Letterboxes

With so much regulated conformity around us it is always nice to discover uniqueness –not everything has to be the same. These letterboxes could so easily have all been exactly the same, neatly lined along the wall, probably looking like the first box on the extreme left -efficient, practical, neutral but rather bland. Instead, we have here such variety that hardly two boxes are the same; each seems to have a distinctive personality, which is what gives the picture interest. We might like to speculate about the owners of the various boxes, what kind of personalities they have, and whether they correspond to the appearance of their post boxes. Other than that, there's something ordinary and urban about this photograph that I quite like; plus its harmonious diversity

Location: Oslo, Norway

City Skyline

It's been a while since I was last in Chicago so the city skyline has probably changed a little since this picture was taken –buildings tend to grow higher and smarter all the time, but what I like about them is that they are all different, all unique, yet stacked together they create a uniform identity which I suppose could be said to embody the city itself. Here the sky is typically a little moody, the air chilly, but there's a determined sort of resilience about the view -here work and life is taking place behind a thousand windows. In the foreground are the trains, waiting moving -you can almost hear their bells and clatter. And beyond: the city beckons...

Location: Chicago, USA

Lunch for Two

Things that look similar or identical are often fascinating subjects for a photograph; people too, which is why twins invariable work well in pictures, whatever the circumstances. Whether these two workmen on their lunch-break are twins is unclear, but they could certainly be brothers; there's something tremendously satisfying about the similarity of their posture, the identical plastic bags between their legs and the same Hi-Vis vests. The location is, of course, the base of the Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus -itself probably the most photographed spot in London. Against the dark base these two light up, enjoying a few minutes repose before returning to work. I liked the sense of "moment" and the somehow rather sweet pairing.

Location: London, England

Southbank

Big Ben is currently surrounded by scaffolding and undergoing necessary repairs, but this picture is from before the time when this work started and thus the palace of Westminster is uncluttered and Big Ben itself magnificent and proud in the early evening. We're on London's Southbank looking across the Thames. I've always adored the ornate lampposts that line the embankment on each side of the river. Here they have not yet been lit and are in the shade of the overhanging bridge so the decorative dolphins that enwrap each post cannot be seen but they are as much a part of London's landscape as Big Ben itself. I just liked this picture because it captured for me a moment and a mood and so much of what makes me love London.

Location: London, England