Daisy .....

..... in the rain.

Today I've had a cultural day out in London visiting various galleries and exhibitions. I caught the train to Covent Garden to have a look around the area I worked for five years ( I don't miss it ) and from there had a walk along the Thames and over the river to the South Bank ( I also used to briefly work there helping out in one of the artist's studios ). The South bank is a blippers paradise, there is so much life going on that I was snapping away every few seconds. There is currently a Malaysian expo on the Southbank showcasing Malaysian arts and culture. I stopped for 10 minutes to watch some traditional Malay dancing then carried on my way.

My next stop was the OXO Tower, there are some great contemporary design shops there and I always manage to find a few things to buy whenever I visit, today was no exception. I carried on my walk along the river photographing City life all the way. There were joggers galore and builders in high-vis jackets working on various building projects as well as colourful buskers and tourists.

I eventually made it to the Tate Modern and spent an hour wandering around the galleries, the highlight of my visit to the Tate was a performance piece in the turbine hall. There were dozens of people stood and sat around looking like visitors to the gallery, and then all of a sudden they started chanting and singing with unsuspecting visitors mingled in amongst them, a sort of flash mob performance art. The piece is devised by Tino Sehgal and well worth a visit ( if you're in to that sort of thing ).

I had a walk over the wobbly Millennium Bridge and a stroll over to the Barbican Centre to see the 'Random International Rain Room' installation at the Curve gallery. The queue to get in was over an hour long but it was worth the wait. The installation is a large space with rain falling from the ceiling in to grilles on the floor which pump it back around. The clever part is the use of cameras to create a 3D map of where visitors are in the room, so that as they walk around the rain stops in the area directly over them meaning each person has their own dry space which follows them around as they walk with heavy rain all around them. The installation was made all the better for meeting the lovely Daisy who very kindly agreed to pose for a few photos for me ( Daisy didn't have a proper camera with her, so I'm emailing her the photos I took ). I have put a few more photos taken at the rain installation today in my Blip folio.

My last stop of the day was the new Photographer's Gallery near Oxford Street, There are no exhibitions on until later in the week, but I spent a good half an hour looking in their brilliant bookshop and treated myself to a few books and a nice photo frame ( which was being sold off cheap ). I must have taken over a months' worth of blippable photos today, but the choice of blip was easy. So today's blip is .....


..... Daisy in the rain