Stills

I've climbed these steps a time or two. It mystified me then, and still does now, why we put up with the grime and the lack of maintenance.

You've captured the place well.
 

I see this a social landscape image, someone who is seeking and able to find shelter from the elements, up the stairs, while another does without, who is down the stairs.

I am probably reading a lot into this, but hey, I am reporting on what I see. Almost a Robert Frank moment, eh?
 

After I read Rex's comment this morning I thought of changing the title to 'urban space 3' but had to get on so dropped the idea until the evening, by which time too many comments have come in to make it sensible.

I place the Millennium Bridge quite a long way above the new pedestrian bridge in terms of elegance: the latter is a little bit too derivative, but in terms of function it is such a relief to have elbow room and not be walking in an inch of water. For those outside the UK, Hungerford Bridge is primarily a rail bridge out of Charing Cross to the South , which used to have a narrow, ugly and unpleasant foot bridge from North to South of the Thames (the main pedestrian artery from The Strand to the South Bank and Waterloo) running alongside it. These same steps served the old bridge as well as the new, which about sums up town planning in the UK. It also sums up our lack of vision about integrated transport that it is next to impossible to get a bicycle across here. All of which (if you have followed me!) leads to this being a non-space: hence 'urban space 3'.

However, I have a lurking respect for the graphic nature of this space despite the mish-mash of styles.

Rex, I have tried to take the bridge as well but think that a combination of its derivative nature and its incompatibility with nearly every bit of architecture close up against it makes the job next to impossible.
 

Umm. I can never forgive the millennium bridge (celebrated the wrong year) for being poorly engineered. The phenomena which made it wobble was understood and recorded in papers by those that knew how to design bridges. So we got someone who didn't know how to design a bridge........to design a bridge. I therefore regard it as a blot on the landscape and not worthy of being recorded.
 

Well it works now and marries very well with Tate Modern and St Paul's - hardly a "blot"!!
 

Perhaps I am being a bit extreme in my views.

I've seen some 'good' shots of St Paul's with the bridge in the foreground.

The low profile of the suspension makes it difficult to get any drama in the sky.

As an engineer I am still anoyed that it wobbled.
 

I find the banister along the bottom edge quite a strength to this. That slightest of gaps between it and the right edge offer escape but the pedestrians stick to the chosen route. The umbrella hiding the first pedestrian and the face down of the second combined to some well thought out contrast choices add a further depth of 'despair' to this area. Gloomy in thought but very gentle on the eyes.
 

'Gloomy in thought but very gentle on the eyes.'

Yes, but that bright blotch of graffiti covering paint keeps drawing my out of frame.
 

Yes, but that bright blotch of graffiti covering paint keeps drawing my out of frame.

Rather the opposite I find. The bright patch pulls me quickly up the stairs and delivers me to the umbrella. Without the bright patch, I wouldn't see the brolly as quite so central to the picture.
 

I have to admit that every time I look at this I am immediately drawn to the, what I imagine is, Spanish word 'bueno', and then decide that it can't be: unfailingly!

Doug, I didn't take this with any particular social message in mind (any shot in London can be read many different ways) but, as an example, multiculturalism comes out after the event.

Akikana, from what I have just written, you can understand that this is more gloomy by urban (lack of) design. I wonder if it is the rain that makes it gentle on the eyes.
 

I enjoy how the pattern on the wall top left and the same pattern on the steps tie in, a small section of graffiti has the same rectangular pattern.
The railings front, middle and back help create layers in the picture.
I enjoy the shape the person under the umbrella is making, it is not a person shape like the man at the bottom of the stairs but we know it is a person just the same.
I enjoy pictures like this that show so many different definite shapes, as you might be able to tell differing shapes seem to be what attract me to a picture.
 

A most interesting thread on this one. Without knowing the place, I find the image tells me a lot about how it feels to be there on such a day. The space comes across as a mix of old and new. I can't help thinking that this could never be an image from Akikana in Tokyo -- too dirty and unkept.

The man at the bottom of the steps is a key element for me in the composition and also for interest. It all works beautifully.

John, your comment about the difficulty with a bicycle makes me wonder about provision for handicapped persons -- wheelchairs?
 

Christina - thanks. London, if you don't know it, is a constant mix of old and new. As you may have noted, I am always commenting on how different the idea of Tokyo is: London may be dynamic (in parts) but clean and neat it isn't.

Wheelchairs? Our Underground system is totally wheelchair-user unfriendly. To cross the Bridge, you would enter through Charing Cross Station about 100yds up Villiers Street having never been near Embankment Station (entrance top right).
 

For the moment, I am tongue-tied. The fascinating conversation that sent me back to the photo again and again, then my first impression giving way to all the things I had been led to see are keeping me busy. Hmmm. Not surprising that I keep going back to that reflection(?) of leaves in the lower right. A little hope midst the grime and drudgery?
 

Anita - not only a little hope but to be followed by sunshine two hours later!
 

That is a cheerful piece of news. Thanks for letting me know.

I am learning a great deal by looking at the type of moments I don't really see, much less record. My husband and I were talking about this last night and he said (lovingly, I must add), "Honey, you are stuck on pretty. That's okay." He's right. Sigh.