After photographing the public part of the Remembrance Service at the Cenotaph I walked up to Trafalgar Square. The day was ending and it was already dark by the time I got near to Westminster tube station via Whitehall.

And there on the Elizabeth Tower were projected alternating squares in green, pink, and purple like a chessboard with letters and numbers in the squares, and two large, thin circles in white superimposed over the squares.

I photographed the tower with my iPhone 16, and wondered what exactly I was looking at.

It turns out that I was looking at a projection mapping UV calibration grid designed to ensure proper alignment of the ‘falling poppies’ display to follow.

The calibration grid is needed because the whole business of projecting high-power images from street level to high up on a complex 3D structure like the Elizabeth Tower requires technical alignment beforehand.

The program uses the straight lines of the grid squares (labeled with coordinates) to warp, stretch, and map the digital image so it fits the stonework. Then, once calibrated, the grid is replaced with the visual artwork.

So I happened to be there when the image was being calibrated, and had the pleasure of seeing ‘behind the scenes’ as it were.

Tim Walker is gay, and it’s a big part of his life. And he is a photographer. Or he is a photographer and he is gay. Either way, he has been photographing the gay people he knows. And his photos are on show at the exhibition Fairyland at the National Portrait Gallery.

Some of the photos are of people you would probably know of if you live in Britain – actors and comedians for the most part.

This photo, the first as you enter the exhibition, is entitled Liz Carr as Elizabeth I (2024). It shows gay activist Liz Carr in a costume designed by Sophie Lincoln that is entirely made of paper. In fact, the whole room in which she appears to sit, is a construct in paper.

And here is Tim Walker’s manifesto, or dream, or hope:

AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN

When I think about Fairyland, I imagine myself attending a formal gathering in a big house. Everyone is polite. I go through the motions, feeling othered and stifled by awkward conversations. As I step out into the back garden to get some air, my ears catch the sound of another party… laughter and music coming from beyond the lights strung on the trees at the bottom of the garden.

Some of the guests from the house seem to be heading there, so I follow. Upon arrival, I see Pan, Bacchus, Priapus, the fauns, the fairies, the ancient, the mystical. I join in with their dancing, feeling closer to my nature, and realise that I want others to experience this too. I want to invite you to the party at the bottom of the garden…

Tim Walker

The Ricoh GRIII has a little trick up its sleeve that is pretty unusual among cameras. It has Snap Focus, which means you press the shutter without giving the camera time to focus, and it defaults to the Snap Focus distance.

You can change the Snap Focus distance simply, and choose from the preset distances of 1m, 1.5m, 2m, 2.5m, 3.5m, 5m, and infinity.

In this shot I had the distance set to 3.5m. How far is 3.5m? Well of course it is what it says it is. But to turn that into something practical that I can use, I paced out three long strides and a half-stride – and that is 3.5m or near enough not to matter.

I also chose an ISO high enough that I could have a fast shutter speed and a tight aperture so I would have plenty in focus in front of and behind the Snap Focus distance.

I shot in Aperture Priority at ISO 1600, with an aperture of f5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second.

This was a test to see how well Snap Focus works. I have used it before, but now I am being more methodical and working out how I can work with it.

Now I have to find situations that are more interesting as photographs than people just walking past.

Watch this space.

Yesterday on Whitehall the memorial service for war dead took place. It is held each year at the Cenotaph on the nearest Sunday to 11th November, the date in 1918 when the First World War ended.

Why at the Cenotaph? It’s because of what a cenotaph is – an empty tomb that honours those whose remains are buried elsewhere or were never recovered.

Those dead are buried in cemeteries from Belgium to Rangoon. And some aren’t buried anywhere – blown up, vaporised, nothing left.

The service was held in the morning but I went in the afternoon, walking from Westminster Tube Station, along Whitehall, the road that leads from Parliament to Trafalgar Square. I stopped at the Cenotaph and took some pictures. A public address system with a loudspeaker hung from cables on one of the buildings told people they could make their way to the Cenotaph if they wished. It kept giving out the message, which was slightly surreal given that people were already there and didn’t need a recorded message to tell them they could do so.

Then a line of people walked up carrying big Union Jack flags and one by one came forward to add a wreath to those at the Cenotaph.

I wondered about the recent and continuing controversy over people hanging Union Jack flags on their properties or on lampposts or public buildings and being seen by Councils and the police as provocative anti-immigration Far Right supporters. At the same time they are seen by others as middle-of-the-road normal people showing pride in an England that in their eyes is disappearing.

This is especially sensitive given the protest marches by pro-Palestinian supporters holding and waving Palestine flags, who are not stopped or complained about.

Commenters have said that the two-tier policing is a reflection of reluctance to anger immigrant communities because of their voluble reaction, as evidenced from past occasions.

And then as I walked towards Trafalgar Square, I saw a small group holding Union Jacks and one man holding a pieced-together Ukrainian and British flag.

I remember being in the States before and after 9/11 and the huge number of flags that were everywhere – in front gardens, on shop fronts – everywhere.

Pubs

Before today I never really thought about the pubs on Whitehall. The very fact they are there, in the heart of London on a street filled with Government and Crown buildings, says a lot about Britain. There are four pubs directly on Whitehall – seven if you count those just a few feet down side streets leading off Whitehall.

I noticed them today because of the ex-soldiers with their medals, standing and talking outside the pubs.

And how well I saw the man standing on his own amidst the people standing there outside The Red Lion.

Pagecord

Pagecord is a blogging platform, not unlike WordPress.com. It’s one of the blogging platforms I wrote about a while ago under the title Write This Way Or That Way.

As of 1 November, new potential sign-ups to the free version of Pagecord have to be invited. Previously, anyone could sign up, but according to the site owner, the site has had a lot a spammers signing up so they could use the Pagecord as a stepping stone to get viewers to come to a site they host elsewhere. If I were on the receiving end of that I wouldn’t like it: No one likes being used.

Anyone with a premium account has codes to give out to people they know so that person can use the invitation to get access.

Well, I joined and had a free account and then a paid account before all this blew up, and very early on, at the beginning when Olly built the site.

He has taken a lot of stick for using AI for some of the coding. It’s hard to please everyone. 

I happen to like Pagecord and I can’t see me getting annoyed over how the site was constructed when I would not be able to do that work myself. People are funny. Well, not funny really. They just love to get offended.

I was wondering about the progress of mankind. People are more individual than they used to be. That is probably in line with the move away from tight, rural communities. In the city, people have their antennae out because they don’t know who is around them. Nearly everyone is a stranger, and that turns a person into a stranger too.

So I was wondering whether we are all snowflakes now, hypersensitive when there is no need, or whether we have actually become more sensitive and that is a good thing – or at least not a negative thing – because we are all tuned in more to each other?

Cambridge Botanical Garden

The photos here are from a visit to the Botanic Garden in Cambridge that I visited with a friend this past week. It’s November and the leaves are still on the trees. A magnolia had large buds on it. What are they going to do? Will they hang on until the Earth turns? Will they be nipped in the bud if there is a cold spell? Are we feeling a bit discombobulated because the planet it not behaving in the regular way we like, and are we reading into this the early signs of the coming age of a catastrophe?