Slouching through Paris....and London
“weather beaten
wind pieces my body
to my heart’
Basho 1644 – 1694
Thus Basho wrote in ‘Knapsack Notebook’ as he embarked on a long journey into Japan’s interior: and thus I felt as my Emirates380 flight finally left the ground from the Dubai runway on Thursday 12 th March, 2026 at around noon, accompanied by at least one fighter jet. So, let’s go to other times, in the past, when travel was new and photography a novelty: to trips to Paris circ. 1980 and again in 2018 – and London…..
Slouching through Paris…..and London (1)
“In a station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd
Petals on a wet, black bough”
Ezra Pound (1885 – 1972)
“Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a Winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many.”
From The Waste Land
T S Eliot (1888 – 1965)
Order of pictures:
1) Paris Café, 1980
2) Waiting Room, Paris, 1980
3) Paris, Pigalle
4) Monmartre cemetery
5) Sortie
6) Jardin de Luxemberg, Takeshi Shikama
7) Charringcross Bridge
8) ‘The Wasteland’
9) Morandi, London
10) London, 91 Bus
11) London, New Cavendish Club
12) Armistice day
13) Nicole and an Angel in London
14) Skateboarder
15) Whitread 1, House, Bethnal Green
16) Whiteread 2, House, Bethnal Green