The Olympics begin today! I am excited. I love the Olympic games, or maybe more precisely, I love the idea that the Olympic Games embody. The rarity of the opportunity that the games bring for ordinary people to perform in extraordinary circumstances. The chance for countries that don't normally grab headlines to shine (think Kenya, Jamaica, South Africa).
I know. Many shrug off the Olympics or take a jaded, cynical approach to it. I don't completely disagree. I don't care much for the commercialization of the Olympics, or the media coverage of it. But you strip that away and get down to what the Olympics are really about - people - and I am enthralled. Can you imagine, training your whole life for this one opportunity, and in many cases, it really is just one chance. I remember growing up watching Dan Jansen fail.... and then succeed. I watched Michael Johnson, in a blur of gold... win gold. I saw Michael Phelps set Olympic history in stunning fashion. There was the excitement of nearly hometown girl, Mariel Zagunis winning gold too. This year will add Oscar Pistorius running in the Olympics (not the Paralympics) with no legs. There is Kerri Strug, Rulon Gardner, Eric "The Eel", Derek Redmond, Antonio Rebolloto (the archer who ignited the Olympic cauldron to start the Barcelona games). And these are just a few of the memories the Olympics have given me over my life.
Twice now I have been in cities in the months just prior to the Olympics, though I have yet to actually attend an Olympics personally. Even months before the games begin, there is an anticipation, a sense of energy that is prevalent just walking around. Someday I hope to attend a games (the winter Olympics given my choice). But for now, I am content to sit half a world away cheering and rooting for hundreds and thousands of ordinary people I don't know who are in the process of doing something extraordinary.
Tags: London The Eye Thames UK England pano panorama film Holga Holga 120 Pan 6x12 b&w city urban view Big Ben Ferris Wheel Blue Moon Camera
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I am finally done working on London images, at least done enough. I figured I had better get on the ball and get them posted before I head back in that direction. Plus, today is the St. Johns Parade. And while I don't have any good parade images from that, I do have a pair of interesting crowd images from London to share today. Where we go in London from there will probably be in fits and spurts. I don't think I will present them in the same fashion as I did Paris and Edinburgh. But then again, I have only ever spent two days in London. It is a bit harder to build anything coherent in such a big and busy city in such a short time.
All the more reason to get back there at some point.
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Caught in the natural tide of humanity that flows between Oxford and Picadilly, it is a circus indeed. In more ways than one. Of the three major foreign cities I have traveled through in the last two years, they were each different in their own unique fashions. Paris has the wide boulevards and the Arc de Triomphe. Edinburgh had the hidden intimacy of its closes. But London. London has the circus and it is difficult to translate that into film. If this image seems a jumble of chaos and confusion, of over-layed human bodies and various rights of way, the blur of a bus or taxi, then it has caught a portion of that. I left out the lights and the colors and the sounds and smells of it all. But when faced with such a monstrosity of humanity, you do what you can.
Of course, I mean all that in a good way.
Tags: waking dreams Holga Holga 120FN multiple exposures film analog 6x6 Kodak Tri-X walking go with the flow London UK Europe travel crowded bustling England
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Not only does London have the circus, it has the Grand Canal too. So, one of our few morning in the city, my mom and I wandered its length from our neighborhood near Notting Hill to Regents Park. Makes me wish Portland had a grand canal too.
If you need help with the image, it's a Holga photo peering over the lip of the canal down into a reflection.
Tags: Holga 120FN London England UK Europe lo-fi Grand Canal film 6x6 analog square b&w Kodak Tri-X flight
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Somewhere along the Grand Canal in London. It isn't on the beaten path per se, nor is it really off of it either, but in a sort of no-man's land somewhere in between. Those are the areas I like exploring.
I am planning a juice break for tomorrow.
Tags: Hasselblad Hasselblad 500C film analog London England UK Europe square 6x6 b&w Kodak Tri-X canal Grand Canal city urban urban nature
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