Sunday, November 18, 2007

Business as usual


Comments:
I like this image, especially with the foreground Murphy sign, which gives this a 'Murphy Stikes' moment (when unexpected bad things happen, such as what the local businesses are putting up with during the construction). The longer that I look at this image, the more I find. The tonalities are nice and keeps me involved in the image.
 

With the local businesses listed, one might expect somebody - a coffee shop customer perhaps - to be here; or perhaps they have not taken note of the exhortation on the sign. Yes, there are details to note (and I like the newspaper shop frontage) but, despite the see-through nature of the fencing, one feels that the picture is screening one out. As if the locals haven't got enough defences already with their barbed wire on top of the wall.
 
Is this a consequence of the Turbine Hall Crack? :-)

I like the 'What the Dickens Sandwich bar and Coffee shop' etc. The list brings a bit of intimacy with the area.

I thought for a moment the newsagents was Murphy's (Murray's ??)

Given the textural nature of the image should the 'P' have been included?
 
Lopsided frames within frames. Geometry gone all higgledy-piggledy. It works.

Not sure about the 'P'.
 
The nerve it must take to write 'trading as usual'! Shops suffer so much during public works, I am not sure they appreciate the humour.

I certainly like it, though, especially that big Murphy written in front. It makes it so ironic. And the fence seems to be decorated with a smiley because of the shape of that stripe and the two posters above it.
 
The works, btw, are at least non-trivial. Large parts of London are having replacement water mains put it. The old leaky Victorian pipes have had their day.

Almost everywhere I went that morning I came across Murphy and his works. I did try and shot some more direct stuff, but large holes in the road reveal less in a photo than they do in life.
 
At this small size it makes it all very cramped. But at much larger sizes I'm not sure you appreciate the amount of detail in the shot that warrants the viewer's attention. The crack and objects to its right are nearly falling out of the shot but the erect lamppost plus the wall to the left keep things in frame. The mesh on the fence adds a good filter to make you look more deeply behind to work out what's going on. Oh...I'd like a 'P' please Colin!
 
I never thought that the P would be so controversial. I've checked the neg and it isn't there, so this shot will be forever P-less.
 
You are apparently a master at taking what seem impossibly busy scenes and making them into a photo that can be "read" well, whether it is in nature or on the street. As others have noted, the many interesting details keep one here for quite some time.

I have no problem mentally adding the "p" -- doubt I would have thought about it had it not been mentioned.
 


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