Eros

Eros

I’m pretty sure I’ve never taken a picture of that statue in Piccadilly Circus: by the time I was in the area with any regularity, it was too hackneyed a subject for my lens, I felt! And I missed it during the sunny Sixties visit that I posted from last Friday – as traffic was so different back then, it may well be that my cousin drove right past it without having to stop…



It’s strange that I’ve NEVER taken pictures there – I’ve missed out on the exhausted tourists and the hyperactive teenagers. It’s odd – one of the bus routes that I use a lot in London goes past, and it’s really easy to hop off and hop on. And it’s not that far from places I have been to quite a bit, like the National Portrait Gallery.



So what do I photograph in central London? These days, it’s likely to be people, both commuters and tourists, plus workers. People in a newly-opened chip shop in Greenwich (well: it was newly opened when I took these pictures in 2010. I wonder if it’s still there at all?)



And just occasionally, the sights. On this particular occasion, I think I’d been in town for a work meeting, and I’d also arranged to do some pictures with Danielle (see today’s gallery image). And I did something that I’d done on my summer holiday in London back in the Sixties, and went on a cruise down the Thames to Greenwich. Things had changed a bit, along the way, and not necessarily for the better.



I suppose this may be a problem for anyone who feels proprietorial about their own capital city, even if they don’t live there. We did the tourism a long time ago, and don’t repeat it often. And when we do, the images from long ago may haunt us: it’s great if you can find a place and see how it’s evolved: less fun if you have trouble even finding the same location. It’s worse if it wasn’t your picture to begin with!



A few years ago, I decided to find the location of Bill Brandt’s classic portrait of Francis Bacon on Primrose Hill. As I recorded in the forums three years ago, it’s not as simple as it sounds, because everything was different. New street lights, new surface on the path, and – biggest problem – the trees have grown rampant in nearly sixty years! I’ll post a link in a comment below.



Now, I’m not specially good at street photography (maybe you can tell…) But it’s really hard to point a camera at exactly the same thing that all the tourists are shooting with their mobiles: the temptation is always to photograph the tourists, rather than make a hash of the shot they’re taking (spoilt by the selfie stick on the right…)



Maybe next time I’ll see what I can do with the archer in Piccadilly Circus! I suppose I will be able to go back to London some time this decade: and I shall, as usual, try to cram in as many as possible of my favourite places, though it’s possible that many will have changed a lot since the last time I was there.



Why did I use Eros as the title? Well, it’s to check a theory I have, which I will probably explain later. Who knows? I may have got you reading…