Paul Strand at the V&A, Rubbish and Red 143

Another £5 Tuesday?

Earlier in the week I went along to see the Paul Strand exhibition 'Photography and Film for the 20th Century'  at London's V&A - pleasantly surprised to find that V&A has a special deal this month, a £5 Tuesday might take a visit to the Botticelli reimagined if I can squeeze it in.

Anyway back to Paul Strand - he was a much travelled  'left leaning' US photographer with a distinctive style and agenda.

The exhibition is not as enormous as some of those I have seen recently (which I felt a good thing) but generally the pictures were (for me) a bit on the small side, largely I think because of the technology at the start of his career. Strand had experimented with near abstractions in his work before moving more to portraiture and to an extent he returned in latter years when he live in France and took many pictures of his garden.

So much to see

The other aspects which I felt slightly jarring in his work were his lack of obvious humour and a tendency (to my mind) to go for a slightly under exposed outcome - detail was undoubtedly there but needed some work to see it.

Strand appeared out of the prevailing politics in the USA and travelled to countries where it seemed a more enlightened politics was being investigated (including Egypt, Romania and Ghana) - I think that the current global situation would not be great for him!

On the positive side I like the 'Edward Hopper' vibe that could sometimes be seen in Strand's work -or is it the other way round?

The V&A really does have a tremendous scope and there are so many well curated rooms that it'd take a lifetime to do the Museum justice - aside from that the café is a marvelous place to enjoy lunch and the outside courtyard a delightful space on a summers day - Well done Victoria.

Ealing Council produces Democratic Deficit

Good work neighbour!

Off to 'Green Box heaven'

Now that the new Ealing Wheelie  bins are with us (operationally) it seems that many  residents are belatedly seeing what a blight they are on the landscape - I reckon the jury is still out on the financial savings that the new 'scheme' will deliver too.

Seems to me that the imposition has been part of a high handed attitude by local council - which ploughs on with ill considered development schemes - I'm not sure if this is the fault of a 'we know best' attitude by local politicians or their leaders.

{oh yes I don't mind saying I told you so}

Red 143

A sea of Neon