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Rain Drops

24/5/2014

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Walking through Crystal Palace Park in London in between rain showers, I was enjoying the spring flowers before they fade away before summer starts. I enjoy walking through parks after a shower. The freshness of the plants and the air is often intoxicating.

I don’t consider myself a floral photographer, but I am often drawn to taking photos of them. I enjoy the symmetry, geometry and colour of plants and flowers. Some architects are influence by the symmetry and geometry in nature, like Gaudi.

It is easy to pigeon hole photographers into one subject or another. However, the reality is most photographers take photos of a number of subjects. I recently went to a David Bailey exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery recently. Bailey is known for his portraits of famous people but I found his personal work – taking photos of indigenous people – equally, if not more, interesting.

What drew me to the flowers in Crystal Palace Park while I walked through it was the added layer of the rain drops on the flowers. I don’t often take more macro photos, but I am finding myself taking more close up images of flowers in particular. The detail, symmetry and colour are interesting and can be lost without taking images of flowers close up.

Below is a sample of the images I took. 
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In Bloom

13/4/2014

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After months of grey and cold, spring begins by peeping through the slumber of winter and gently awakening the earth before summer. As spring begins to bloom, people often reflect the change in season by having a bit more spring in their steps.

Seasons have their own energy and character. Spring is about waking up, beginning to grow and an increase in energy. Life is beginning to sprout again.

I find springtime a treat. While I enjoy the winter light and the shadows it offers, spring brings longer days, a lighter step and a different type of light. Spring also brings flowers.

Plants and flowers manage to sprout from almost anywhere. While walking to and through Crystal Palace Park, I was spoiled for choice for photographing flowers. Below are the results. 
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Calm Before the Storm

28/10/2013

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PictureCrystal Palace Park, London, UK
As large parts of the UK were battered today by strong winds and rain, I enjoyed the calm and fairly sunny weather in London over the weekend. Living near Crystal Palace Park, I enjoy walking through the park at different times of the year.

At this time of the year, I enjoy the autumnal face the park has to offer. While the colours are more muted to what I have enjoyed in Canada, they are pretty nonetheless. The rustic colours still remind me of a fading autumn which melts into winter.

Living in the UK, I have become accustomed to more unpredictable weather. While I enjoyed autumn’s colours over the weekend, the rain and wind pounded parts of the country Sunday night and Monday. It reminds me to enjoy and savour the moments of calm before the storm, and even the storm itself.

Whatever the weather provides, I often enjoy photographing my surroundings. Rain and wind can make it more difficult to take photos, but the weather can have such an impact on the mood and feel of a photo.

My view is as long as it’s not raining, I’ll keep taking photos. You don’t always need to have a nice sunny day that’s cloud free. A grainy, textured black and white image can be just as strong as an image with a nice blue sky. 

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Winter Sun

17/2/2013

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Picture
Crystal Palace Park, London, UK
The sun can be scarce in London, particularly during the winter months. However, today was what seemed to be a rare day full of sunshine. While I didn’t really feel like taking photos when I got up, I did make my way towards Crystal Palace Park. 

There are many places in London I can easily go back and photograph many times and at any of the year. It’s one of the few places, however, that I can go and photography when I am in a period of contemplation with my photography – like I am now. 

With winter, the park is in slumber, and I find that I am very attracted to it. The long shadows play well with the dull colours and sleeping nature. I didn’t wander very far today and walked through the part with the dinosaurs. 

Before I went to the park, and even on route, I felt tired and not quite in the mood. However, I did have a sense that I needed to get this out of my system, even if my photos didn’t turn out. I am not sure whether they have or not – I was shooting on film, and the photo above is one I took last winter. 

After having a cup of tea in the café and read part of the Sunday paper, I felt a lot better. I am sure the photos I took en route to the café turned out fine, but the mere act of just doing my photography and letting it be without any pretention or pretext was great, and felt wonderful. I just looked and was in the moment. 

I hope the photos show this, even a little bit. 

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Reality Kissing Dreams

4/2/2013

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Picture
London, UK
With a new year, there is a sense of new possibilities and starting afresh. I am also finding my photography shifting, perhaps maturing. At the very least, it feels like it’s changing, and the changes seem to be in their infancy. 

My photography seems to be adding an otherness to it. I have always been drawn to taking abstract images, but they sometimes seem to have a bit more dream-like aspect to them. 

While I have always found inspiration in the everyday, I am finding a new dimension of the everyday. Perhaps I am subconsciously questioning more the reality and the world around me. Perhaps I am more in tune with what I am seeing. Perhaps the seemingly solid, well, isn’t so firm. 

Picture
With the passing of time, perhaps I am becoming more reflective and this is beginning to show in my images. Winter often brings out the more reflective side of me, and I have had to give my photography some space and not rush my creativity. I am still taking photos, but my subconscious seems to be thinking and I seem to be capturing moments currently rather than series or movements. 
Picture
I seem to be in between, and perhaps my images are reflecting this. Something is happening and my subconscious seems to be toiling away, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I am enjoying letting it fester away, and for me to explore. But the most important thing is not rush it, but let it let it reveal itself. 
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Fading Highlights

21/10/2012

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Picture
Crystal Palace Park, London, UK
The autumn draws to a close the preceding months of summer – full of colour and warmth, at least in between the rain showers in Britain! The days shorten, and the leaves fall from the trees. I love autumn, particularly in Canada where the trees are an explosion of colour. 

I notice the muted and subdued colours in Britain, but they aren’t as exuberant as the colours in Canada, and I do miss that. However, I do enjoy the muted-ness of the British autumn. There is still a sense of changing seasons.  

I walked through Crystal Palace Park a couple of times this weekend, and enjoyed what was on offer. 

Picture
Crystal Palace Park, London, UK
Even the stone statues seemed well place amongst the muted colour. 
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As I was leaving, I noticed a fence that had been cut. Even through this, the autumn colours in the background made the image much more interesting, and perhaps a little less stark. 
Picture
Crystal Palace Park, London, UK
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Watchful Eyes

15/1/2012

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Picture
Crystal Palace, London, UK
The Sphinx statues in Crystal Palace Park are remnants of the park’s glory days when it was the Victorian playground - a playground which housed The Crystal Palace, which occupied the area from 1854 to 1936.

The Park may not be as glamorous now as it was when The Crystal Palace stood in its boundaries, but its charm and character draws me back. The graffiti-ed Sphinx statues, the crumpling statues and stairs, and anatomically incorrect dinosaurs are reminders of Victorian grandeur, curiosity and scientific thought.

I have photographed Crystal Palace Park in all seasons, and have enjoyed the changing moods, colours and difference in light. While I enjoy photographing the dinosaurs, I am increasingly drawn to the other side of the park, which isn’t as maintained as the area of the dinosaurs. The decaying grandeur of the statues and stairs draw me in.

A week ago, I was walking through the park and taking photos along the way. I was enjoying a bustling park on a Saturday afternoon with nature in slumber. The muted colours gave me a subtle palate to work with, and accented the crumpling remnants of Victorian splendour. The 2 films I was shooting on focused my attentions on what really caught my eye.

I was photographing the Sphinx statues, and was really enjoying the light falling across the faces of a couple of them. I was particularly drawn to one. Its eyes had been drawn in with black marker – making them look less dead. The statue looked as though it was still surveying the park from its perch. The statue has seen many changes since it was placed in the park – and I am sure that it will bear witness to future changes.

For me, the eyes drew me in – and I could relate at its gaze. The parallel is I often feel like I am perched somewhere taking photos of what is around me. I have sometimes gone back to re-photograph something or an area and have picked up something different or any change that has happened – however subtle. 

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Remnants

21/8/2011

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Picture
Crystal Palace Park, London, UK
One of my favourite places in London is the Crystal Palace Park, with its fleeting memories of The Crystal Palace.

Originally erected in Hyde Park, London, in 1851, The Crystal Palace housed the Great Exhibition of 1851. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in the Industrial Revolution.

The building was moved to a new park in Penge Common after the Exhibition, and stood in the area from 1854 to 1936 - when it was destroyed by fire. Walking along the promenades, you get the sense of its grandeur. It must have been amazing to visit in its day, and did attract huge crowds.

Not much is left of The Crystal Palace in the park, but what is left is a ghostly, and crumbling, reminder of what was there. What catches my eye is the promenades, with the stairs leading up to both, and the last remaining statues and sphinxes.

The remaining statues have a life and stories of their own. They seem to be surveying the park, keeping watch over the hustle and bustle in the modern day park. I often wonder what they would say if they could talk. 

Picture
Crystal Palace Park, London, UK
It’s a shame that many of them are no longer around, or have been damaged. 
Picture
Crystal Palace Park, London, UK
But they do give a sense of a bygone age. 

The stairs up to the promenades, and the crumbling stone work around them, give a sense of the decadence of the place, but also of its fragility. One does get a sense that nothing lasts forever, no matter how spectacular it is.
Picture
Crystal Palace Park, London, UK
Recounting my steps back down the stairs, I found it interesting how, even in the modern day, people continue to use, and enjoy, the space where The Crystal Palace once stood.
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I would have enjoyed to see The Crystal Palace in all its glory when it was build. However, I do enjoy the hints of it in its decaying decline. It will be a place where I will return again and again with my camera to capture its fleeting memories.
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Looting London

14/8/2011

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Picture
Crystal Palace, London, UK
The looting and violence in London, and elsewhere in England, in the last week or so shocked many and raised fundamental questions about British society and the reasons why people did it.

I found it surreal to be out during the day in areas of London which were fairly unaffected, but to be watching the devastating effects of the violence and looting on the news at night. Even my local shops in south east London were closing early and locking down in order to protect themselves. A handful of shops were even targeted in my local area, and the violence in Croydon hit very close to home.

While much of the violence hurts the very fabric of local communities, the boarded up and burnt buildings – both residential and commercial - are a physical reminder of the trauma that happened in the riots.

In the aftermath, I did wander around my local area as well as Clapham to see the damage for myself. The initial clean-up had obviously taken place, and the police were more visible on the street.

However, I found it interested to see how the boarded up windows had become a vehicle for the communities to communicate – whether to say that businesses were still open for business ... 

Picture
Crystal Palace, London, UK
Or messages of support...
Picture
Clapham, London, UK
While many have lost much, or even everything, there seems a bit of community defiance at the damage that has happened. Simply writing on a wall with a pen to share ones feelings. And in Clapham, people stopped and read what was being written. 
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In the Middle of the Park

6/3/2011

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Picture
National Sports Centre, Crystal Palace
The National Sports Centre, situated in the middle of Crystal Palace Park, is a good example of a functional and modernist, if not slightly brutalist, architecture. 

Opened in 1964, and a Grade II* listed building, it is steeped in sporting history. It is situated on the original Crystal Palace Football Club’s football ground, and the site also hosted the FA Cup final from 1895 to 1914 as well as other sports. 

How sports are housed says a lot about a nation, and where sports sits within it. Sports venues tend to be bold statements on a nation’s sporting pride. Although, the National Sports Centre is being usurped somewhat by the Olympic Park in Stratford, it has played a significant role in Britain’s sporting heritage. 

As a photographer, I find myself drawn to modernist architecture as it often lends itself well to be photography. However, on a personal level, I have mixed feeling towards modern architecture. When done right, it can be light, airy, spacious and forward thinking. When done poorly, it is brutal and unwelcoming. 

Not surprisingly, the National Sports Centre is a very functional building, and the modern architecture reflects the 1960s. It is a bold, modern statement and looking towards the future, and state of the art for its time. 

What really drew my eye to the Centre were the lights in front of the building. The white, pointed structures can be easily mistaken as art. It was not until I was leaving the Centre that I realised they were lights – as I only ever saw the building during the day. 

The white structures give contrast and texture to the grey concrete of the Centre. They are almost space-like. 

Often I am passing by the National Sports Centre en route to somewhere else, but have taken snapshots on my digital point and shoot digital camera. 

I do plan, however, to take photos on a larger camera. However, I have yet to decide whether to take them in black and white or colour. It may be best to photograph them in both!

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    Author

    Heather Martin is a London based photographer who specialises in architectural, event and B&W film photography.

    For more info, please to the About page.

    **Heather Martin owns the copyright to all the photographs and text within this blog, unless otherwise stated.

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