Scott Tracy and stiletto shoe… whose icons?

More brick wall from the Deptford Project.

As usual, fabulous coffee. The cake is made by Ajay and highly recommended – as is all his cooking.

One more;

Note the noose

Just off Crossfield Street by the dog park

Deptford seems to be littered with car/motorcycle detritus at the moment. Today Deptford Broadway was covered with broken glass too

There is a big old lab lumbering towards the dog park in the background

This rather nice Olympus 35 ED rangefinder can be seen at The Deptford Project Cafe. Probably dating from the mid 1970s. It is the cheaper cousin of the RD which had a f/1.8 lens. Enough retro-geeking.

It just felt right to be taking a photo of a classic rangefinder camera with a classic rangefinder camera. The other side of the camera etc etc.

These bike racks near Fordham Park are glowing slightly

The car park behind The Albany

Tell me, just WTF is that sticking out of the tree top right corner? I didn’t even notice it when I was snapping, it was the car that drew me.

This reminds me of Repo Man for some reason. I half expected to see the cars rise up into the air with Harry Dean Stanton laughing at me through the window of one of them… oh how I wish.

MUCH madness is divinest sense

To a discerning eye;

Much sense the starkest madness.

’T is the majority

In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;

Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,

And handled with a chain.

Emily Dickinson

Thanks for being such a good mentalist-mate x

But that is beside the point. Despite being funded by a huge oil company, each of the guides is a modernist classic and the black and white photography accompanying the text, together with the (for its time) daring layout, is magnificent. The Dorset guide was authored/compiled and illustrated by Paul Nash for God’s sake. One of Nash’s students was Eric Ravilious, and his son James is one of my favourite English landscape black and white photographers. An English Eye: The Photographs of James Ravilious by Alan Bennett, Peter Hamilton, and James Ravilious is available second hand on Amazon but for a surprising price (and I’m smug about that ‘cos I’ve already got mine).

Soooo, I’m using a Leica and Tri-X but I’m not getting the same results as James Ravilious, ho hum.

Today, Folkstone Gardens was more like somewhere else. The light was extraordinary. It was just a shame I didn’t have a slower film since it was already loaded at EI320 for some other low light work I had to use it. But I like grain, that is why I use film… duh.

Urban contradictions, not exclusive to Deptford

The ground was covered in white fluff and somebody told me it was kapok. It certainly felt like kapok because as soon as I picked it up and had it in my fingers I had a Proustian memory of my Mother stuffing rag dolls with kapok when I was a child. It has a very distinctive slippery feel like some kind of organic teflon. However, I’m pretty sure kapok trees are tropical and a quick search of the interwebs confirms it is native to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, northern South America, and to tropical west Africa. It also grows to 70m tall, so despite predictions of a barbecue Summer for the UK, I think it is unlikely to be kapok. Anybody know?

As you can see, it isn’t just the odd seed blowing around. The park looked like it was covered in stuff from a bad movie snow blower. We’ve been watching it blow past our second floor flat window for days (more like snow). I don’t remember this in previous years.

Pretty flowers… nice. Hidden gems behind the SELCHP.

Always a bit dodgy poking a camera round places like this, luckily nobody was around to ask me why.

The car park just behind the market at the back of The Albany was just nasty this morning (Sunday). Maybe it is because it is the day after the England match at the World Cup. Messy as hell.

I spend enough time there anyway.

These were leaning up against the Old Seager Distillery (undergoing controversial and hugely impactful change to the Deptford skyline –  read The Deptford Dame’s post for the gory details of the disgraceful planning process). I will bet a pound to a penny that once the development has completed the 453 stop will be a tidier and more anodyne place to wait for the bus.