kimbofo

A gorilla in the garden

Place: Elgin Crescent, Notting Hill, London.
Date: March 25, 2012.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve.

I don't know about you, but a lovely posh house like this calls for a special focal point in the garden. Maybe a fountain or a pond or a beautiful ornamental tree?

Or how about a sculpture of a gorilla, then? Yes, I thought so.

Personally, I love it, but the mind boggles as to the how the owners of this house settled on this particular piece of art in this particular part of chic West London — it's just so surreal. 

The naked ceiling

Place: Palazzo Abadessa, Venice, Italy.
Date: March 2, 2012.
Camera: Panasonic TZ3.

You're lying in bed. You look up. You're dazzled by a glass chandelier. Beyond that lies a painting that covers the entire ceiling. There's so much going on in the picture you don't know what to focus on first — every time you look at it you see something different. There's cherubs. And flowers. And all kinds of curlicues and scrollwork.

And then you notice that the woman, who sits in the middle of the painting, is baring her breasts...

More eggs!

Place: in and around Sloane Square, London.
Date: February 28, 2012.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve.

How eggs-citing: without even looking for them, I stumbled upon five more eggs this afternoon as part of The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt in which 209 eggs are hidden across central London.

These ones were discovered in and around Sloane Square and the Duke of York Square.

That means I've found 15 eggs in total. Only 194 to go!

Eggs in the City

All pictures taken: City of London.
Date: February 26, 2012.
Camera: Panasonic TZ3.

A couple of years ago the Elephant Parade came to London and I got a little bit obsessed about looking for these wonderful statues to photograph for my online gallery.

Now the same charity that brought us the elephants is now bringing us The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt in which 209 eggs are hidden across central London.

This afternoon we headed to the Square Mile to see what we could find and this is just some of what we discovered...

You can see more in my online Egg Hunt gallery.

Bank holiday snaps

 

All pictures taken: Various locations around London.
Date: May 29-31, 2010.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve 8900.

We've traipsed all over London this weekend, with an Amsterdam-based visitor in tow, and have managed to go on almost every form of public transport available in the process (tubes, buses, taxis, boats). Meanwhile, the ever-changeable weather has thrown high winds, rain and sunshine in our direction, often within the space of just an hour or two.

Here's some random shots taken on my camera phone during our adventures. The one above is a view of Canary Wharf in the drizzling rain as we thundered down the Thames in a clipper enroute to Greenwich.

 

Above: Tower Bridge on Saturday afternoon, taken from the pier out the front of the Tower of London.

 

Above left: BT Tower from the back streets of Marylebone. Above right: Christ Church Spitalfields in the East End. (We went to Spitalfields Market, only to discover it was closed.)

   

Above: refreshment time in a poncy pub on Marylebone High Street (before going on a bit of a spending spree in Daunt Books).

 
Above: another elephant in the Elephant Parade. This one was in Greenwich, but we also stumbled upon several in Westfield London Shopping Centre on Sunday afternoon.  (I discovered quite a few elephants, by accident, this weekend, so have updated my gallery, if you'd care to take a look.)

And yet more elephants...

 

Place: City Hall, London.
Date: May 18, 2010.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve 8900.

I went in search of more elephants after work tonight and managed to locate a dozen!

I've now created an online gallery to share my elephant obsession. I'll try and update it as and when I photograph more of these beautiful creatures during my travels across the capital.

Two more elephants spotted

 

All pictures taken: Victoria Embankment, London.
Date: May 17, 2010.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve 8900.

It was looking like a rather beautiful evening when I left the office tonight, so instead of heading to Cannon Street tube, I headed in the other direction and walked along the river to Embankment. At Cleopatra's Needle I spied two more elephants in the Elephant Parade.

The top elephant is #227 My Gorgeous Jungle and the bottom one is #197 Haathini. Very cute.

 

Elephants spotted in London!

 

All pictures taken: Southbank, London.
Date: May 5, 2010.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve 8900.

Six hours' sleep and I wake up to find they were STILL counting votes after yesterday's election and we were no closer to finding out who was likely to form a majority government. By the time I got to work, the BBC was reporting it was likely to be a hung parliament. The hours ticked by. Nick Clegg said it was up to David Cameron to form a Government. Gordon Brown said it was up to Nick Clegg and David Cameron to enter into discussions. David Cameron invited Nick Clegg to come talk to him. Yep. This is going to drag on for days... if not weeks. Meanwhile, we all go down the gurgler.

To distract myself, I thought I'd post these cute elephants I photographed on the Southbank, enroute to my book group meeting, on Wednesday night. Aren't they adorable?

Apparently there are 250 of these statues dotted all over central London, including Green Park and Trafalgar Square, as part of an awareness campaign to save the endangered Asian elephant. They've all got names and can be "adopted" for a fee. Fantastic!

 

UPDATE: @mardixon just pointed me in the direction of this delightful picture gallery.

Astronaut spotted in Hammersmith

 

Place: Beadon Road, Hammersmith.
Date: April 4, 2010.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve 8900.

This astronaut, made entirely out of wire coat hangers, is on display in the window of an office building opposite Hammersmith tube station. It's incredibly eye-catching, but I have no idea about the whys and wherefores of its presence. I only spotted it en route to the Dartmouth Castle pub, where I was rendezvousing with T and a friend for dinner (which, by the way, was delicious).

'Paper Tower'

All pictures taken: Festival Hall, London.
Date: October 6, 2009.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve 8900.

Now here's a unique use for toilet roll tubes! This 22m high cone is made out of compressed cardboard tubing.

It was designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban as part of the London Design Festival, and sits on the Waterloo side of Royal Festival Hall on South Bank.

It's the tallest paper tower in the world, and will remain in place until October 15, when it will auctioned off.

You can find out more via the official website for the London Design Festival.