London's Statues & Monuments #1

"All across London, we walk by gilded strangers and men of marble. Very little of the time we give these figures our attention or any pause for thought. Yet statuary persists as one of our most enduring and most public artistic traditions and perhaps tells us the most about others: our relationship to them and their relationship to ourselves. In addition, the personalities that are caught in pose are in every sense remarkable role models and each has an intriguing history behind him or her."

In respect of the above I thought I would engage in another project in documenting London's statuary and suchlike. I've come across stuff that even I have not noticed before.
I will try to document these monuments in an interesting and creative way using they're space, juxtaposition and contrasting surroundings.



Old Father Thames, London '10 #1

[IMG]http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j159/paulyrichard/oldfatherthames1of1cl600.jpg[/IMG]

Paul - what a great idea. I am determined to get more shots of London this year. I like your shot above -it's interesting to consider. The statue has a slightly wistful and optimistic air to it to my mind - the way the chap is looking slightly upwards and out of the frame, and I like the composition looking like two towers. Look forward to seeing some more.

Cheers

Mat W

Thanks, Mat.
The statue in the foreground is looking in the same direction (towards the Thames), the same direction Old Father Thames is pointing.

Sorry Paul, this one doesn't work for me.
Don't like cropping, probably I would preffer to have full monument (not cutted in right, bottom corner), get a bit of bench removed (left bottom corner a bit of armrest, ...), maybe a bit too much space at top of the frame.
More depth between monument and building in background would help it is bit too much in one plane to me.
Also looking forward to see more pics.

Lovely conversion, Pauly. My favourite statue in London is the one in Whitehall with all those women's uniforms hing up. Brilliant and very moving. Also love Churchill's, Richard the Lionheart's and Bodica's (can't spell her name).

Great idea and a real challenge if they're not to be a series of tourist shots.

Love London. Second favourite city in the world after Wells(!) Don't know why people are always slagging it off. Mind you, I don't have to live there and the people there always look well grumpy and out of sorts...
Best wishes,

Andrew

No worries Piotro, your welcome.

They're are more than one pieces of statuary of Churchill in London and its surrounds. My favourite is the one in Woodford which I hope to photograph soon, when the weather cheers up.
The tourist approach is one i'll stay well clear of for sure, and I hope my images have a little more to say than that, in the least.
These statues can be fun to photograph, but taking a step back is where the real creativity comes in photographing them.
Cheers, Andrew.

This sounds like a really good project, and one that will keep you busy for some time. I'm with Mat on this shot.

It'll be an interesting project and a challenge Paul, I look forward to seeing the results. I have a fascination with War Memorials and was contemplating a similar project. I find bronze statues/monuments quite a challenge as they are so dark that getting good lighting and exposure is difficult and then people get in the way. It is the sort of thing that works well at dawn but I am not really a dawn sort of person...

One monument that fascinates me is the Edith Clavell one just off Trafalgar Square, partly for the back story, and partly for the design of the monument. I have yet to get a shot that is anything better than a tourist snapshot although it isn't something tourists photograph.

Good light and we look forward to the results.

K.

Good luck with this project, it's one I would be interested in seeing the results of.

For this photo though, I think I would have included the whole of the bench, the whole of the foreground statue, and perhaps applied some perspective correction to see if it improved the general look.

Thanks guys, for the positivity.

Kris, I know the monument you speak of, its in St. Martins-in-the-Fields and her monument mentions patriotism and such.
The public can be used to good effect in certain circumstances in shooting these monuments. Many of the statues have life in them and relationships can be struck between them and people. This'll be like deep water fishing for those kind of images, I guess.

Peter, I take onboard what you say about the bench. I feel that the icons and monuments, as well as the verticals were strong in this image, as well as those from the bench struts. Paying any more attention to the bench's placement within the frame would only give it more importance and attention.
Thanks for showing interest, I appreciate it.

Nice one Pauly. The matching stares is great, although until you mentioned it I hadn't noticed it at this (slightly small ) size.

I can see what you're saying about the bench too. Pity you can't just pick it up and move it (or can you :twisted)

Thanks, Tim.
Its little things like that which interest me in photography, i'm always on the lookout for these things.

Good capture Pauly, I look forward to seeing more from this series.

Thanks for that, Peter.