(London, 09.55am, June 21st 2007, f 4.5 - 1/80 - ISO 200)
|
|
||||
|
June »
Friday, May 30
Street Life #8
by
Alexis Byter
on Fri 30 May 2008 06:28 PM BST
This is positively the last pastry/bread-product/donut related posting – at least for some time. I found this image buried in a old folder – I was walking past the Tesco supermarket on the corner of Jermyn Street and Lower Regent Street – and there was a line of barren window-boxes bereft of any vegetation and just about anything else except this abandoned donut. I'd like to think it had been left out for the birds or as some latter-day libation to the gods or faerie-folk – but I doubt it.
(London, 09.55am, June 21st 2007, f 4.5 - 1/80 - ISO 200) Wednesday, May 28
Honeymoon in Vegas
by
Alexis Byter
on Wed 28 May 2008 05:52 PM BST
My earlier posting about the 'Berlin Buns' struck a note with a number of people with a interest in techie matters (What are you doing reading this blog, you should be working? – Actually, what am I doing writing this bog, I should also be working!) as it appears that cakes, pastries and sundry bread products play an important part in their lives. So, I thought I would dig out another cake-related photograph – taken with a pretty basic point-and-shoot digital automatic. The picture was taken in the shopping arcade of the Wynn Hotel, which is currently the top venue for weddings in Vegas, and shows a wedding cake that appears to be decorated with icing-covered donuts. Here is a haibun I wrote about the trip...
Honeymoon in Vegas They always tell you Las Vegas is the wedding capital of the United States – if not the world. On my short trip I encounter two brides. The first, clad in traditional long white dress and veil, is standing in the queue for a cab outside the Bellagio at midnight on a warm June evening. The second is when I’m on my way back to the airport. I’m standing outside the Wynn, waiting for another cab. But, there’s a delay and a plane to catch so I order a limo – not as flash as it sounds as they are cheap to hire. A couple, waiting in the queue next to me, ask if they can go dutch and share the limo as they too need to get to the airport in a hurry. “No problem,” I say. Turns out they have been in Las Vegas to get married and took a honeymoon suite at the Wynn that had a floorspace of 1800 square feet. “That’s bigger than many people’s homes in the UK,” I say. “That’s bigger than many people’s homes in the United States,” they reply. Vegas honeymoon – in a bridal suite bigger than the home they’ll share.  (Wynn Hotel, Las Vegas, 20:24pm, June 26th 2007, f 2.8 - 1/60 - ISO 200) Tuesday, May 27
Street Life #7
by
Alexis Byter
on Tue 27 May 2008 01:48 PM BST
Do Americans have a sense of irony? Currently there are a lot of complaints that the rising cost of gazoline (petrol) means that it now costs about $100 (£50) to fill up the tank of a big gaz-guzzling SUV compared with $30 just five years ago. Now look at this picture. It was taken earlier this month in San Diego (shot thru a chain link fence if you were puzzled by the blurry bits) showing a local stretch of freeway (it's the San Diego Freeway where it runs under 5th Avenue as it happens) in the mid-afternoon. The main road is busy – and so is the filter lane/ramp in the centre of picture. But looky here – there is nobody using the carpool lane for cars carrying more than one person. Go figure.
 (San Diego, 15:31pm, May 14th 2008, f 4.9 - 1/400 - ISO 100) Monday, May 26
Despatches #4 – 7 miles high
by
Alexis Byter
on Mon 26 May 2008 10:49 AM BST
Ok, technically this is not a great picture but it intrigued me – it was taken from the aisle of an NWA passenger jet (while leaning over a large Armenian gentleman) flying at 37,000 feet (about seven miles high) over the ice-packs of the Greenland/Davis Strait/Hudson Bay area of North America earlier this month. The metadata on the JPEG file says it was 9:40am in the morning but I'm not sure if that was UK time or US time – mid-flight you are in the middle of so many different timezones that it's all a bit academic. I had to tweak the image a little in Photoshop to overcome to contrast and glare but this is pretty much what I saw with my own eyes. Have the ice-packs melted earlier this year?
 (Seven miles high, somewhere over Greenland/Canada, 09:40am, May 11th 2008, f 4.9 - 1/1000 - ISO 200) Friday, May 23
Street Life #6
by
Alexis Byter
on Fri 23 May 2008 02:45 PM BST
I took this picture in San Diego earlier this month – the city has an excellent tram-car/mass transit system running all the way down to the Mexican border. I took this picture because I was fascinated by the woman with the suitcase and bags – why was she wearing the overcoat and those thick boots on what was a stinking hot afternoon? Was she homeless or just eccentric – there were plenty of both about in San Diego, including an elderly guy in a motorised wheelchair, sporting a luminous pink mohican haircut on his head and flying a pennant on his chair saying he was 'bad to the bone'. He zoomed past me so fast on the street I couldn't get my camera focussed on him before he was gone. Bad to the bone and fast to the bone.
 (Mid-town, San Diego, 17:52pm, May 13th 2008, f 4.9 - 1/320 - ISO 100) Thursday, May 22
Despatches #3
by
Alexis Byter
on Thu 22 May 2008 10:01 AM BST
This week I was in Berlin with the day job, attending another tech show. In
terms of the freebies, all delegates got the Berlin equivalent of an
Oyster card for unlimited free travel on the city's public transport
system and a dinky little backpack/wheelie bag. The latter proved
particularly popular, with grown men devising all manner of schemes to
obtain additional bags. Plenty of food available – altho it was of a
peculiarly Germanic nature, comprising mainly of small animals and fish
fried, stewed, baked, pickled, sliced, diced and/or turned into
sausages served up with sauerkraut and cream cheese. Still, the
doughnuts (donuts ?) were nice.
 (Messe Centre, Berlin, 16:52pm, May 19th 2008, f 4.0 - 1/60 - ISO 100)  (Messe Centre, Berlin, 15:39pm, May 19th 2008, f 3.6 - 1/25 - ISO 400) Sunday, May 18
Street Life #5
by
Alexis Byter
on Sun 18 May 2008 08:03 PM BST
I don't do early mornings – takes me all my time to get my shoes co-ordinated, never mind my socks – so there I am, early one morning last summer, walking across the concourse at Liverpool Street Station in London, when I see this immaculately dressed women in front of me, wearing a killer pair of high heels – a pair of killer high heels that were the brightest thing to be seen that morning. End of story.
(Liverpool St. Station, London, 07:39am, July 24th 2007, f 4.9 - 1/200 - ISO 80)  Friday, May 16
Despatches #2
by
Alexis Byter
on Fri 16 May 2008 01:44 PM BST
I'm doing a lot of travelling at the moment – and that means endless hours waiting around airport lounges, as well as the now all-too-familiar 'shoes off, belts off, jackets off, pockets emptied, laptops out, liquids out' routine going through security. Here are some casual observations gleaned from the past 24 hours...
• At the airport in Memphis, Tennessee, they offer little plastic bag-like bootees to put on your feet before going through security, so you don't get your feet dirty. Its the only airport I've ever seen with this facility. Southern comfort? • On the fight into Atlanta, the pilot warned of turbulence because we would be flying through 'tornadic weather' – an interesting euphemism to ponder while all around were losing their lunch. • In one airport lobby, while discussing the tyranny of alway-on email thanks to Blackberrys and wi-fi, another traveller confessed that he was trying to introduce the concept of 'email-free Fridays' at work. "If you need to communicate with someone, just pick up the phone and speak to them – and if they are in the same office, go visit them." The man was clearly a dangerous radical. Here's a picture I took last month in one such departure lounge – he's not practising yoga but merely sitting there to take advantage of the nearby power socket.  (Miami International Airport, 19.06pm, April 13th 2008, f 3.2 - 1/13 - ISO 100) Thursday, May 15
Despatches #1
by
Alexis Byter
on Thu 15 May 2008 12:39 AM BST
I'm staying at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego. It's the coolest hotel in the city. All the bellhops look like rock band roadies – and all the women working on the reception desk could pass for rock chicks. Loud rock music plays in the foyers and corridors 24/7. But leafing through the hotel guide in my room I read the following passage, and I quote...
IN CASE OF AN EARTHQUAKE: Tremors are infrequent and seldom dangerous. When you check into your room, please identify the safest place of an earthquake, so that if a tremor occurs you can carefully move toward it. Remain calm and don’t panic. Do not rush outside. Protect your hands and feet from debris and broken glass. Brace yourself in an inside corner away from windows and glass. Crouch under a table or desk. Stay away from windows, sliding glass doors and mirrors. Move to an inner wall or corridor. Avoid any objects that might fall or shake loose. If you are in bed, stay there and place all the pillows and covers over your body. Stay away from windows, sliding glass doors and mirrors? Avoid any objects that might fall or shake loose? In my room one whole wall – all that exists between me and a 12 floor rapid decent into the street – is made of glass. The door to the bathroom is a sliding glass door. There are two mirrors, each measuring approximately 5 foot by 5 foot, in my room, as well as a wall mounted flat panel TV with a screen so huge that many cinemas would be in envy of it. (This TV is suspended over a small desk, the only element in the room I could possibly crouch beneath.) And there are a number of glazed pictures hanging on the walls in the room. Did the people who wrote the earthquake warning ever visit my room? Do the women working on the reception desk realise the irony of answering the phone with the question 'How can we rock your world?' And, am I the only person to have noticed that one of the pictures in my room – a photo of the neck and machine-heads of a Fender Stratocaster guitar – has been hung upside down? Tuesday, May 13
Street Life #4
by
Alexis Byter
on Tue 13 May 2008 05:55 PM BST
It wasn't that long ago that the sight of a news camera crew filming in a busy street would have attracted a huge audience. This picture was taken last September in London's Oxford Street – you can see the woman on the right hand-side of the photo giving the news reporter (who I assume by her headscarf was working for an Arabic or Asian TV channel) a passing glance but apart from that, nothing. How blase we have become.
(Oxford Street, London, 13:46pm, September 3rd 2007, f 4.9 - 1/200 - ISO 80)  Monday, May 12
Haiga posting
by
Alexis Byter
on Mon 12 May 2008 03:19 PM BST
With fighting breaking out in Beirut again, again, here is a haiga I originally created a couple of years ago – don't worry about the JCX signature, that's an old pseudonym I once used. This is no place for a lecture but I believe its an option for every creative artist to comment on topical issues when they feel the need – you don't have to but if you do feel the urge, don't be put off by the fear other people may think you are being 'political'. All art has a political subtext.
 Saturday, May 10
Street Signs #4
by
Alexis Byter
on Sat 10 May 2008 04:27 PM BST
Another image that combines elements of street life with street signs. They were holding an exhibition at the Bass Museum (immediately behind me as I took this shot) celebrating some of the ideas people had in the 1940s, 50s and early 60s for developing Miami as a holiday resort. I like the way the exhibition's subtitle 'Promises of Paradise' is off-set by the reality of the boarded-up art deco Adams Hotel across the way. Looking at this photo on a large screen I also noticed the clutter of power lines and telephone cables. This seems to be a feature of American streets – I've got a copy of a Walker Evans picture (Main Street, Pennsylvania Town) taken over 70 years ago in 1936 and hardly anything (other than the shape of the automobiles) has changed – half empty streets and skylines cluttered with cable.
(Miami Beach, 11:37am, April 12th 2008, f 4.5 - 1/1000 - ISO 100)  Friday, May 9
Street Life #3
by
Alexis Byter
on Fri 09 May 2008 06:47 PM BST
Not sure whether this falls into the category of street life or street signs... anyway, back to Miami Beach again. Because this is a pedestrian-friendly city, you see a lot of people walking their dogs (although admittedly most of these dogs look like 'rip your throat out at a moment's notice' American bulldogs or pitbulls – which is why I was sheltering behind the lampost, or whatever, on the far right of the picture. What originally caught my eye here was the dog belonging to the guy in the blue polo shirt and shorts, seen heading out of the top of the picture – the dog had more bling around its neck than the average gangsta rapper. Americans also like their big shiny 4WD pick-up trucks (so do I actually) and it was only when I looked at the full size version of this photo that I saw on the back window a sticker saying the driver attended the University of Margaritaville. The bumper sticker reads Politicians and Diapers need to be changed - Often for the same reasons.
(Miami Beach, 10:03am, April 12th 2008, f 3.6 - 1/800 - ISO 100)  Thursday, May 8
Street Signs #3
by
Alexis Byter
on Thu 08 May 2008 09:16 AM BST
This picture was taken in the vaults beneath the market building in Scarborough. I liked the incongruity that beside the seaside in England, there was an enthusiast for Native American culture – and that he had had to go to Sweden, another country also not known for its Native American culture.
(Scarborough, 10:57am, August 1st 2007, f 8 - 1/60 - ISO 200)  Wednesday, May 7
New prose poetry
by
Alexis Byter
on Wed 07 May 2008 11:05 AM BST
BOURBON EYES
6:30 in the evening. You finish your third Jack Daniels, roll yourself another cigarette, then turn to me and say: Sure. I’m really happy with the way my life’s turned out. You smile tightly and quickly turn away, in case I notice your eyes are lying. Your eyes are lying. They are lying to me and they’re lying to you. You’re heading for the rocks and a bottle’s the only wreckage you’ve got to cling on to. 6:35 in the evening. You order your fourth Jack Daniels and roll another cigarette. ...Lex Byter Tuesday, May 6
Street Signs #2
by
Alexis Byter
on Tue 06 May 2008 10:01 AM BST
This was taken in Miami Beach last month – I particularly like the contrast between the idealised world depicted by the model on the poster and the real lives of the people waiting for a bus. And it also reflects that well-known trope of street photography that there has to be a guy in a wheelchair somewhere in the picture.
(Miami Beach, 3:41pm, April 12th 2008, f 5.6 - 1/100 - ISO 100)  Monday, May 5
Street Life #2
by
Alexis Byter
on Mon 05 May 2008 10:08 AM BST
I came out of the Tube (that's the London Underground system for non-UK residents) at the Embankment/Charing Cross station stop one day last July and there was this cat in this e-normous hat sillouetted up against the light. It was at the time of the year still known as 'the Season' in London and I guess she may have been heading on to an event such as the Chelsea Flower Show, which is very much a summer frocks and straw hats event.
(London, 1:33pm, July 19th 2007, f 4.9 - 1/60 - ISO 250)  Sunday, May 4
Street Signs #1
by
Alexis Byter
on Sun 04 May 2008 07:42 PM BST
As well as street life, I'm also interested in street signs – not so much the structures themselves as the messages they contain. Messages that frequently leave you wondering: did their authors really mean to say that? Here's one I saw on The Strip in Las Vegas last year "cold beer....dirty girls" – further comment is unnecessary.
(Las Vegas, 7:50pm, June 28th 2007, f 4.0 - 1/800 - ISO 80)  Saturday, May 3
Street Life #1
by
Alexis Byter
on Sat 03 May 2008 09:51 AM BST
I'm fascinated by people-watching - and people snapping. Here's a picture I took in Scarborough last year. I particularly like the way a balloon promoting McDonald's Happy Meals has managed to creep into this shot of that most traditional of English seaside pleasures – eating ice-cream. And, in case you are wondering, there is nothing pornographic about Winking Willys, despite the sign behind the woman's head having been penetrated by a phallic looking lighthouse. It's just the name of a fish 'n' chip shop/cafe that uses a grinning, winking fish as its logo – it being a well known fact that codfish smile with happiness when they are trawled from the sea, beheaded, filleted, dunked in batter and then submerged in boiling fat before being cooked and eaten.
(Scarborough, 6:34pm, August 1st 2007, f 3.7 - 1/100 - ISO 100)  Friday, May 2
New prose poem by Alexis Byter
by
Alexis Byter
on Fri 02 May 2008 01:20 PM BST
Here's a prose poem I've just finished, about a recent trip I made back from the US
SEVEN MILES HIGH Flying back from Vegas, crossing the Rockies at dusk, the crests of the mesas bathed all peachy pink. Christine McVie singing Songbird in my headphones. The girl in the next seat laughing out loud at an old episode of Only Fools and Horses. It’s minus 54 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Eight timezones to cross on a fourteen hour flight, clock faces a blur as their hands race to keep pace. I’m taking a trip halfway into tomorrow, before yesterday’s had chance to say goodnight. Five hours, 54 minutes – and 2502 miles from home. Seven miles below, the North Atlantic ocean, laid out like a crumpled, stone-washed, denim-blue dust sheet, waiting to catch all those lost hours and minutes as they tumble, irredeemably, from our lives. Thursday, May 1
Hello & Welcome
by
Alexis Byter
on Thu 01 May 2008 10:03 PM BST
As David Frost used to say "Hello... and welcome." It's been a while but I'm at last ready to launch this site which, as the name hopefully implies, is all about my writing and photography.
Things you should know about me #1 – I'm a BIG fan of the prose poem form – in fact I'm a signed up member of the Prose Poetry Liberation Front, motto "Those precious verse poets should be lined up against a wall and shot with their own enjambments" Things you should know about me #2 – I'm also a fan of the 'street photography' genre Things you should know about me #3 – I don't take myself serious, so I hope you don't either Things you should know about me #4 – the title for this site comes from the name of a business I used to run many years ago – altho that in turn was inspired by the old David Bowie track Sound and Vision. First formal posting tomorrow – and feel free to post a comment at anytime. ...LEX |
Recent Photos
Recent Articles
Search
Year Archive
|
|||
