Shirley .....

...... in the Cabman's shelter.

I've had a fun day out in London today. First stop was a visit to the Photographer's gallery to see a couple of exhibitions on there, both very interesting but the photos by Jacques Henri Lartigue taken in the 1920s of his life with his wife gave a fascinating glimpse of a long gone era.

I had a walk through town stopping to take this photo of Shirley who works in an old Cabman's shelter where she cooks fry ups and brews cups of tea for London taxi drivers. I carried on over the river for a look at the Christmas market on the Southbank. I spotted a few photographers hanging about by some metal railings so had a walk over to see what was going on. The railings were at the back of the ITV studios and the photographers were there to get snaps of the celebrities leaving the studio. There was also a group of teenage girls there to see an X factor boy band and a group of autograph hunters.

I took a couple of photos of 'celebs' leaving the studio in the 10 minutes I was there but the people waiting to see the celebs were much more interesting. I had a chat with a woman called Tanya who is obsessed with the group Boyzone and also had an interesting chat with one of the photographers called Christopher about his job as a paparazzi, he's is quitting it at the end of the year to try something new.

This afternoon I met up with Mecha to have another visit to the Only in England exhibition at the Science museum. We really should have gone earlier as there are so many great photos to look at that we could have easily spent all day there. After the Exhibition we had a couple of drinks in a nearby pub before heading back to the Science museum to go and see a talk by Martin Parr about Britishness and photography. Also in conversation with Martin were the photographer Sean O’Hagan and social anthropologist kate fox.

The most interesting part of the talk was the Q&A at the end where Martin's strong opinions on photography really came out. He talked about photographic clichés and the need to photograph the every day and not just the nostalgic or unusual ( I guess my photo today is slightly nostalgic ). After the talk we got to meet Martin and I got a book signed ( another to add to my already over full book case ).

It was lovely to meet Mecha today and talk about photography ( Thanks for a lovely evening Mecha ). I've added a few more photos from today to a set here, despite being a bit nostalgic this photo stood out to me, so today's blip is .....


..... Shirley in the Cabman's shelter.