The London Eye

click photos to enlarge

I've noted elsewhere that my initial reservations about the suitability of a giant Ferris wheel in the centre of London were misplaced. I had thought that bringing an element of the funfair to the middle of the nation's capital, and siting it next to the River Thames and historic buildings was insensitive; that the cityscape would be devalued by its presence. But, repeated viewings of "The London Eye" as it is called, and a ride in one of its slowly rotating high-tech, capsule-like gondolas changed my mind.

In fact, I'm quite in favour of tall structures, open to the public, that give a view over the city. The great churches of London, pre-eminently, St Paul's Cathedral, have done this for centuries. So too has The Monument to the Great Fire of London (known simply as The Monument), a 202 feet (61 metres) tall Roman Doric column, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and built between 1671 and 1677. At the time of its construction it was the tallest free standing column in the world, and provided a panorama of the rooftops of the City. More recently the 581 feet (177 metres) tall BT Tower (formerly the GPO Tower) that opened in 1966 was designed with a revolving restaurant that gave diners a great bird's eye view of the capital. Subsequent tall office blocks have surpassed these structures, but without adding much of distinction to the skyline, and without allowing the general public to enjoy the view.

The downturn in the economy is likely to put a brake on the next generation of tall London buildings. The proposed London Bridge Tower, know colloquially as "The Glass Shard", is likely to be one victim of the tightening of purse strings. Many will welcome this, seeing such structures as detrimental to the London skyline. My view is that height shouldn't necessarily be a bar to construction if the design is good and the site is suitable. Provided of course there is public access to the top so that those great vistas can be enjoyed!

photographs & text (c) T. Boughen

Top Image
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bottom Image
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blackpool semi-abstract

click photo to enlarge

What's the difference between represent- ational art and abstract art? Well, most people would say that abstract art doesn't depict objects that you can see in the natural world, whereas representational art does. That gets somewhere near the heart of the matter. However, many artists have a problem with the term "abstract", and prefer "non-figurative" or non-representational" to describe their work.

That being the case, how are we to describe, say, Cubism - the early twentieth century style of Picasso and Braque. Their images included people with compound faces seen from multiple points of view, guitars that are unlike real guitars, and shapes and colours that intersect with recognisable objects, but which are like nothing found in the natural world. Interestingly, these paintings were, at the time, and for many years after, described as "abstract art". Today however, with the experience of decades of completely non-figurative art, we would no longer use that term. "Semi-abstract" is now sometimes used as a description of art that uses a mixture of figurative and non-figurative components, or that uses figurative components in a way that emphasises, say, their pattern, colour or shape. And, what applies to fine art painting also applies to photography.

I was thinking about this when I was deciding how to categorise this image that I took on Blackpool's South Promenade. It features the "fish-tail" of the vane that revolves a seat to ensure that the users are always turned away from the wind; the 235 feet high summit of "The Big One" roller coaster; some odd clouds that were originally vapour trails; and a deep blue sky. The image doesn't seek to tell you anything about each of these components - it is semi-abstract. Instead you are invited to take pleasure (if it is there to be found!) in the odd juxtaposition of these strong, strange shapes, and the combination of intense and subtle colours. Oh, and (if you haven't read the description above) to wonder what on earth these things are! To capture this image I used a wide zoom lens at 28mm (35mm equivalent), with the camera on Aperture Priority (f8 at 1/500 second), with the ISO at 100 and -1.0EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen