Hackney graffiti

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Over the years I've mellowed a little with regard to graffiti. I still dislike "tags" and the graffiti that is piled up one surface on top of another as spraycan-equipped passers-by superimpose their graphic on top of that of earlier "artists". However, I am better disposed towards the considered piece that seeks to add something of beauty, interest or humour to the street-scene.

We came upon today's example in Hackney, London. It isn't particularly accomplished drawing and doesn't seek to make any obvious point, but I like the restricted pallette, it brightened up a street corner and it caused me to wonder why the raindrops were multi-coloured. The piece also causes something of an optical illusion due to the figures being much larger than life-size. This has the effect, at first glance, of making the bicycles appear to be under-sized or children's bikes. As Isay, nothing profound, but nothing offensive either, and on a wet day the subject resonated..

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Graffiti, Hackney
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Painted building facade, King's Cross

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The UK is pretty reticent when it comes to painting the outside of buildings. Traditionally render has been painted, usually white or cream though sometimes branching out into drab pink, blood red, a shade or two of green, and sometimes blue or yellow. In recent years quite a few new housing developments have been built that make use of colour. There are regions, often highland areas, where farms and isolated houses in the countryside are sometimes painted white to make them more visible. However, the place where colour is most readily accepted on the exterior of a building is the seaside town. Here terraces are frequently colour-washed one or many colours. Blue and white - nautical colours - are favoured, but others can be seen too.

During the last quarter of the twentieth century painted facades with a humorous or artistic intention, sometimes like graffiti writ large, began to proliferate. I have mixed feelings about such buildings. Sometimes they are fun, but too often they are eyesores, a garish flash of colour that detracts from the locality rather than adding to it. Frequently the intention is to prolong the life of a run-down structure, though the fading paint soon contributes to the air of dereliction. The example in today's photograph is near King's Cross railway station in London. The paintwork doesn't acknowledge the building at all, but treats it as a flat canvas with shapes and lines continuing across windows and pilasters as though they didn't exist. This distinguishes it from most such work. It's the sort of treatment that I feel I should dislike but I don't, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is that appeals to me. Perhaps it's because, in its location, it isn't so garish that it demands to be looked at. But more than that, the combination of colours and the strong diagonals are very much to my taste.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Painted Building, King's Cross, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 90mm (180mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f5.5
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:320
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Graffiti and murals

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From what I've seen of Portugal - the capital, Lisbon, and something of the coast and countryside nearby - the country has a problem with graffiti. In particular the "tags" that people spray on buildings and anywhere else that offers a flat, plain surface. On some buildings, particularly in and  around some residential areas, the surface up to a height of six feet is covered with years-worth of the stuff. Fortunately in public places it is usually much less prevalent. I've written elsewhere on this blog about my feelings on graffiti, so I won't repeat them here. I've also expressed my views on murals painted on buildings, saying that I prefer them to be on something attached to the surface rather than on the wall itself. That way the building doesn't have to suffer the years when the mural is in decay and has become an eyesore.

Of course, my view is founded on my experience of murals in the cities and towns of the regions of the UK, rather than in capital cities. And the fact is, I've seen very good murals in London, works that enhance an area and put a smile on the face of passers-by. It's hard not to agree that these are worth-while artistic and social endeavours that make a positive contribution to the cityscape. I've seen examples of this sort in Lisbon too, and today I post a couple of photographs of two murals on two elevations of the same building. The building is adjacent to the quay where liners tie up, a riverside area of strictly utilitarian buildings, somewhat neglected, where this mural adds a note of interest. When I saw the characters in the main photograph I had a feeling I knew them from somewhere: they looked familiar, with a hint of steam punk about them. However, I've been unable to turn up anything on the internet so I'll have to wait and see if anything eventually surfaces from the depths of my memory. The face on the smaller photograph made out of chipped render is particularly effective and unusual. Incidentally, some of the pervasive graffiti that I mentioned can be seen on the lower left of the building.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (30mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.2
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Old graffiti

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On March 12th 1848 I. Burton and H. King of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire were standing on a staircase of Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire, presumably with a hammer and chisel or some other implements, carving their names in the stone handrail built into the wall. We know this because the heavily incised graffiti is still there for all to read. It is, I suppose, an immortality of sorts. They had probably been inspired by L. C. Howy (?) who had done the same thing in 1779, and perhaps by others from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

At the time this brick and stone castle was in a ruinous state, open to the weather and to any passing tourist, antiquarian or vandal. Many of the latter left their mark and most of them can be read today. One of the characteristics of graffiti today is that if it isn't quickly removed it soon attracts more. That was also true in the past.

We saw this particular piece of graffiti on a visit to the castle. However, it wasn't the first old graffiti that we'd seen that day. Before we arrived at Tattershall we had stopped off at Haltham and noted the names and dates left on the stone surround of the church's south door by vandals of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There was much less, to be sure, but it was there nonetheless. Even in the supposedly God-fearing seventeenth century there were people who thought little of leaving their name or initials on the fabric of a church, clearly unworried by the thought of any retribution that might follow their desecration.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:3200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fishing with Einstein

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"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"
Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832), English cleric, writer and collector

When I took today's photograph showing a fisherman on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal with Einstein grimacing behind him, it occurred to me that I could post it accompanied by two of my favourite quotes/jokes by the U.S. comedian, Steven Wright. These are:
"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot" and
"I heard that in relativity theory space and time are the same thing. Einstein discovered this when he kept showing up three miles late for his meetings."
However, in checking the wording of the second quote I came upon a website that suggested it wasn't by him at all, but was a "a look-alike from Alex Kirlik". The form of Steven Wright's jokes - observations that are odd, clever, weird etc - delivered in a deadpan voice, are not unique to this comedian, but a stage act based solely on this approach that brims with twisted logic, a style that I find utterly compelling, probably is: hence today's quotation that I chose for the head of this piece.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm (210mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Establishment graffiti

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The meaning of the word "graffito" has become modified in the past fifty or so years. During the first half of the twentieth century it had two meanings. The Oxford English Dictionary quotes this as the definitions first recorded in 1851:  "A drawing or writing scratched on a wall or other surface; a scribbling on an ancient wall, as those at Pompeii and Rome. Also, a method of decoration in which designs are produced by scratches through a superficial layer of plaster, glazing, etc., revealing a ground of different colour". The latter applied mainly to pottery.

However, the newer meaning, with a citation of use dating back to a Chicago newspaper in 1967 is: "Words or images marked (illegally) in a public place, esp. using aerosol paint." At that time the singular tended to drop out of use and the plural now tended to serve for all references. The key word in the newer definition is "illegal". From that time onwards the illegality of the growing amount of graffiti, particularly when "tagging" arose, became one of its defining features and was what turned most people against it. Graffiti became "underground" and anti-establishment.

But, the establishment has a long record of absorbing anti-establishment movements and making them mainstream. From the Beat poets to punk rock businesses have seen such trends as new ways to make money. It has happened with graffiti too. Works by graffiti artists now appear in galleries. Public spaces, such as the skate-boarders meeting place on London's South Bank, are made available and a blind eye is turned to spray painting. And, as today's photograph shows, advertising has appropriated graffiti-style illustration now that it is no longer solely associated with urban grime and illegality. This example is part of a wall in a passage in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, that leads to a printing business's establishment.

My view on graffiti has changed with the prevailing tide. I still abhor illegally daubed tags and even well-done painting if it is done without the owner's permission. But I can see interest and innovation in some of the graffiti that I come across and I have been motivated to photograph it - see here and here.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon 5DMk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/25
ISO: 320
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A sign of the times 2

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Walking through London one recent evening I came upon a No Entry sign that had been "artistically augmented". To the white edged red circle with its white central bar someone had added what I took to be a traffic warden. This figure was either looking over or slumped on the central bar and two red hearts were either coming from him (or her), or were the object of his (or her) attention. Clearly the person responsible for the "artwork" was trying to say something but I couldn't for the life of me see what. As far as I was concerned the would-be artist had failed, though I did think that could have been because I wasn't part of his target demographic. Nonetheless I took a photograph of the sign, and, over the past few days, I've wondered a little more about it. But to no avail.

Then it occurred to me to turn to that modern fount of all knowledge that is the world wide web for some enlightenment. So, I typed "London no entry sign graffiti" into an image search box and came up with photographs of the same subject and different "augmentations", perhaps by the same person. They included the white bar as stocks through which a head and arms poked, the white bar as a surf board under someone's arm, a figure in the process of sawing through the white bar and the white bar as an actual bar at which people were drinking. Seeing my example alongside the others it was clear that no deep meaning lurked behind the graffiti, WYSIATI (what you see is all there is), and the highest aim of the artist was whimsy. Banksy has a lot to answer for!

Why have I given this blog post the title, "A sign of the times 2". Well, I was obliquely reminded of another sign that I blogged about in 2009, one that that was unintentionally humorous, to which I'd given the original title.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 23.6mm (63mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blue and yellow

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Many years ago, when I was studying the history of art, I came across the technique known as sgraffito. When used in wall decoration this involves applying two contrasting layers of plaster to the surface and then scratching through the top to reveal the lower. The word derives from the Italian for "scratch" which in turn is linked to the Greek for "write". It is, of course, also connected with the word "graffito" (singular) and the more commonly used (and seen!) plural, "graffiti".

As I've said elsewhere in this blog, in general I'm against graffiti because it is most usually found in the form of "tags" on surfaces where it has no right to be, degrading the appearance of the locality. Even when it has some artistic merit, if it is on someone's property against their wishes or without their permission, I'm against it. However, there's little to object to when graffiti is on a surfaces specifically provided to receive it, or where permission has been granted.

I came upon the graffiti in today's photograph recently and decided that it too was unobjectionable. The marks had been made by fingers in the patina of dust and dirt on the metal surface of a water-borne crane. The state of the boat on which the crane was mounted was more objectionable than the graffiti, which isn't permanent and of little merit, being merely the names and scrawl of passing youths. What made me think the subject worthy of a photograph was the yellow steps and hand rail (with their shadows) against the blue paint and smudges of writing. Blue and yellow are near complementaries - the yellow would have to tip more towards orange for them to be truly complementary. This is a colour pairing that sometimes appeals to me very strongly, and at other times I find quite garish. On this crane the yellow must be for visibility reasons and I quite like it. The irregular graffiti adds an undisciplined counterpoint to the colours and regularity of the metal, and it's probably this that caused me to take my shot.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Street art and big lips

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Not until last weekend did I realise that the area around Brick Lane in London is something of a graffiti hotbed. Many of the streets and much of the waste ground and buildings feature examples of this street "art". Quite a bit is done to a technically high standard, a few pieces are witty or visually interesting and several are all of those things. Much is poorly executed, derivative or lacks interest. I came upon this example just off the main area, on the side of a building that overlooked a small car parking space. The graffiti extends to the left  with the elaborately written green word, "sugar", the last part of which can be seen in my shot. In order to avoid a very elongated crop I photographed only the right hand side showing the jacketed torso and pipe-holding arm surmounted by large pink lips. I suppose the whole piece was called "Sugar Lips". Part of the word "lips" can be seen poking up out of the breast pocket of the jacket. Which sugar lips? I ask because when you put those words into Google you get a multiplicity of different references. Perhaps it's obvious to those who create such works and admire them, but it isn't to someone of my generation.

In the absence of any obvious reference point based on "sugar lips" I focussed on the smoker's pipe, an artefact that is rapidly disappearing from our everyday experience as the pipe-smokers die off. Not as a result of their habit I hasten to say (though some doubtless do), but because it is something that was favoured in the past, is no longer fashionable, and the remaining practitioners are largely older folk. Then I thought of what is possibly the most famous pipe in art - the Rene Magritte painting, Ceci n'est pas une pipe , and the use of lips by the Surrealist Dali, the Pop Artist Tom Wesselmann, and Andy Warhol - just the type of mainstream artists a graffitist might reference.

For more examples of the graffiti in this part of London see here.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 67mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Graffiti

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I feel about graffiti in pretty much the same way that I do about using the motorcycle as a form of transport - it's not for me, but when it's used properly it's admirable. Unfortunately both are often seen in an anti-social context. What do I mean by that? Well, the motorcycle is a relatively efficient vehicle, and for those that enjoy such things, a pleasurable form of transport. Regrettably however, a lot of motorcyclists see their machines as an expression of their perception of manhood and consequently ride them too quickly and too noisily. The result is far more deaths of motorbike riders (and people they crash into) than would otherwise be the case.

Similarly, graffiti art can look great, a joyful expression of the contrasting teenage qualities of individuality and clannishness (if such a word exists!), something that can enliven a dull location with ever changing line and colour. But, too often the art is sprayed on the property of someone who hasn't asked for it, or is in the form of elaborate and repeated "tags", also where it isn't wanted. This anti-social application of the art gives graffitists a bad name. However, where it is practiced with the consent of the owner - as under the National Theatre on London's South Bank, or the BMX and skateboard ramps in the place noted in the photographs - it can be great fun.

The three photographs above are contrasting examples from that Lincolnshire location. I like the first one for the shapes of the large, decorative, overlapping letters, the second for the colour and the qualities of the figurative drawing, and the third for the simplicity of the concept (a repeated, overlapping  "tag") as well as its strongly contrasting colours. One of the pleasures of graffiti in a location such as this where it is welcomed is that if I visit again next year the art on view is likely to be completely different.

One last thought. Graffiti has come to mean the sort of stuff in these photographs. It wasn't always so. It used to mean writing on walls and other places. Graffiti has been found in Pompeii, and I often see it carved on medieval church tombs by seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century vandals. When I was young it was often applied to funny lines of this sort: "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous" or "I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure". Happy days.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

First photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Made to last

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One of the pleasures of looking at churches is that you can get an almost palpable sense of history and the continuity of life down the generations. The other day I visited a succession of churches including St Andrew at Pickworth in Lincolnshire. This is a beautiful, essentially fourteenth century building, but with two windows and a font from the twelfth century. Most people who are interested in ecclesiastical architecture know Pickworth for its wall paintings of the late 1300s. Above the chancel arch is a Doom that continues on to a nave wall. This was designed to show the congregation the fires of Hell, and it includes three figures being boiled alive in a cauldron. Other paintings illustrate St Christopher, the Ascension, The Quick and The Dead, and the Weighing of Souls. These were uncovered in the nineteenth century having been painted over in earlier centuries when such things were frowned upon.

Fascinating though the painting are, the thing that caught my eye was the door inside the south porch. It was made and placed in its doorway in the early 1300s, and has remained there ever since, opening and closing as successive generations of villagers have entered and left the church. It bears the marks of centuries of nails and tacks where priests and parish clerks have fixed notices to its thick oak planks. The "C" shaped hinges and the decorative iron lobes and tendrils are rusted, with parts missing, but they still hold it together as they did on the day it was first fixed in place. I find it remarkable, and quite humbling, to see an artefact such as this, the subject of care and sensitive restoration for the past 700 years, still in situ and still giving good service. As I studied this venerable object I became aware of carved graffiti on the inner walls of the porch on each side of the door. The oldest date I could find was evidently made by "WS" in 1614. There were many dates from the 1700s, and the latest appeared to be from the 1970s. Later, as I looked at the eighteenth century slate and stone gravestones in the churchyard I wondered if any of these departed, eulogised by those who erected their memorials, were those who had left evidence of their youthful indiscretions carved inside the porch!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

(Doorway)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm macro (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A different kind of vandal?

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The other day I paid my £2.50 to climb just over half-way up the 272 feet high tower of the church of St Botolph in Boston, Lincolnshire. As I puffed and panted up the dark, narrow, spiral staircases I couldn't help but notice the graffiti that generations of visitors had left on the walls.

The most recent were of the "Marky woz ere 22-10-07" variety, or were protestations of undying love, written in text-speak with either a pen or scratched on the surface of the stone. There were also many examples from the twentieth century, and nineteenth century examples weren't difficult to find. But, when I ducked under an arch-cum-doorway that went through a corner buttress, I came upon this interesting group. At the bottom is the date 167?, the last digit being indecipherable due to erosion. Above is the name W. Lisons, another W (to make it symmetrical?) and the date 1753. Then there are further letters (I and S), with a star, that also look eighteenth century, and a mixture of other letters and marks of more recent origin.

As I gazed at them I reflected on why someone would write their name with a hammer and chisel on this ancient building, high above the town. Then it struck me that back then pens were neither as portable nor as permanent as today's, and aerosol cans weren't even a figment of someone's imagination. So I suppose that if you were looking for a bit of fame, notoriety, or even immortality (of sorts), then this might seem the way to achieve it at very little cost. It occurred to me that today's spray painters with their "tags", bubble writing and stencils, probably mark "their" territory from much the same motives. My final thought was that the graffiti that disfigures our present environment wouldn't be quite so ubiquitous if it had to be done with a hammer and chisel. Furthermore the noise as they chip-chipped the letters would make it so much easier to catch the miscreants, and Banksy's anonymity would be very short-lived!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On