Instagram – John Beardsworth

Instagram

JohnSep 6, 2018

For more than a year I have been posting new pictures to Instagram and odd videos on YouTube. Just don’t take this as evidence of any burgeoning social media strategy, let alone of any ambition to be an “influencer”, or whatever. It’s just proof that I am still alive, if anyone is wondering.

johnbeardy

Shadows, Parliament Square In early 2020 the coun

Shadows, Parliament Square

In early 2020 the country was in the strictest phase of lockdown. While most of us obeyed the law, many alone as they suffered from the loss of loved ones (even the Queen), in the garden of 10 Downing Street Boris Johnson joined colleagues and made the most of the fine weather. Apparently he mistook a “bring your own booze” party for a work event.

#protest #demonstrator #borisjohnson #johnsonout #politics #ukpolitics #London #fujifilm #fujifilmuk #lightroom

Strand on the Green, Chiswick In one of my favour

Strand on the Green, Chiswick

In one of my favourite corners of London, the mist developing over the river did its best to distract me from a pint with an old friend, before its promise was washed away as the afternoon gave way to evening. Fog on the Thames (mine, all mine), became Rainy Night in London.

#chiswick #strandonthegreen
#rain #london #winter #evening #fujifilm #fujifilmuk #lightroom

Marble Arch Mound On its last day before being pu

Marble Arch Mound

On its last day before being pulled apart to be recycled and quickly-forgotten, by early Sunday afternoon Covid-era London’s most unloved visitor attraction had a 50m-long line snaking around its entrance. Up slopes which never matured to resemble the verdant promises and remain as barren as the slag heaps of the 1970s south Lancs coalfield (think “Jubilee Park”, #Leigh) which the Mound resembles, the pilgrim’s reward for reaching its sunlit uplands would be a view just a few metres too low to see over the tops of the trees or nearby buildings. Like the products in nearby Oxford Street shops decorated with Sale signs, was FOMO the last gasp of this short-lived £6 million monstrosity?

#marblearchmound #themound #westminster #marblearch #oxfordstreet #london #fujifilm #

Kazakh embassy, central London Doesn't any protest

Kazakh embassy, central London
Doesn't any protest look so much better with a "very nice" dog?

#protest #dogs #kazakhstan #london #fujifilm #lightroom

South Bank London seems so grimly-grey after the j

South Bank
London seems so grimly-grey after the joy of having Christmas with the family and my daily walks seem drawn to the bright lights of the late afternoon.

#southbank #london #fujifilm #lightroom

National Memorial to those lost to Covid-19, Londo

National Memorial to those lost to Covid-19, London
Why does the UK have the highest number of deaths in Europe? Why is England an exception, whether it’s lifting mask requirements in crowded spaces or dawdling months behind other comparable countries in vaccinating children? Why does anyone listen to a word the British government says? When we wear masks or avoid meeting friends, is this not in spite of what our supposed leaders say?

#nationalcovidmemorialwall #covid-19 #covid19 #covid19uk #lightroom #fjifilm

"Sausage heaven" - the German Christmas market, Tr

"Sausage heaven" - the German Christmas market, Trafalgar Square

It's funny how one forgets how things used to be. The German Christmas Market has become an annual fixture on the north side of Trafalgar Square, but this space outside the National Gallery used to be a busy road until it was pedestrianized ten - or was it twenty? - years ago. Not every road closure is beneficial, of course, and around my area of Dulwich in south London they've simply displaced traffic from more expensive streets, but some changes can be successful and Trafalgar Square immediately felt whole once it was no longer isolated in a sea of traffic. Sometimes I wince at the square's closure for some event or another, and yodas should be culled, yet I suspect many photographers find it a fruitful hunting ground throughout the year, much more so than nearby Covent Garden for example. And I just looked up the closure date - it happened in 2003.

#sausage #germansausage #winter #christmas #christmasmarket #trafalgarsquare #london #lightroom #fujifilm

Brentford #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotograph

Brentford

#blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography #fog #winter #thames #boats #Brentford #lightroom #fujifilm

Last Saturday before Christmas, Whitehall #demons

Last Saturday before Christmas, Whitehall

#demonstration #protest #London #whitehall #fujifilm #lightroom #themet #metropolitanpolice

Searching for colour So grey in London right now.

Searching for colour
So grey in London right now. Instead of the special pre-Christmas dim sum that we'd been planning - including lobster and deep fried oyster - the day began with the excitement of getting Covid test kits and seeing if.... Well, I was pretty sure my cough and sore throat were my own fault for sitting around in the cold, but who doesn't worry in these times? Anyway, a negative result encouraged me to go Christmas shopping at the chess shop in Baker Street and wind my way down through Mayfair and on to Westminster.
Girls in tight dresses and makeup by JCB (not shown) slip off their winter coats and get photographed outside Tiffany in Bond Street. The German market in Trafalgar Square has tasty frankfurters, it seems, but no Stollen, while Ethiopians (and a couple of Rastas) were demonstrating outside Parliament as they think the US and UK are behind the civil war there. Maybe we are, but that's one thing I won't blame our Covid-addled Brexit-infested government for - it's way beyond their capability! Don't they known Dominic Raab and Liz Truss have been in charge of British foreign policy?

#london #christmas #december #gloom #lightroom #fujifilm

Protest against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and

Protest against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill in Parliament Square
Such a diverse group of protesters from right wingers with the Cross of St George flags through to anti-Brexit protesters, animal rights activists, noisy Extinction Rebellion drummers, and anti-vaxxers.
I’m not a fan of using flash in these environments when you can’t see what you’re photographing and you don’t quite know what flash will illuminate, and it’s pretty telling that the shot I like most was without it - and pin sharp at 1/15 second.

#protest #killthebill #parliament #parliamentsquare #fujifilm #lightroom

Battersea Power Station Years ago I used to commu

Battersea Power Station

Years ago I used to commute to Slough and noticed this view as I cut through Pimlico round the back of Victoria Station. The last time I photographed it redevelopment was in full swing and the power station seemed trapped in a dense mesh of crane towers - their red lights sparkling like a festive decoration - but the work is now coming to an end and the building has nearly escaped its tormentors. Utilitarian grunge may have given way to corporate polish, but when you think that it could so easily have been lost to London's skyline, doesn't the old building deserve a cigar or two?

#batterseapowerstation #london #night #railway #fujifilm #lightroom

Oxford Street I wonder how long this shop has had

Oxford Street
I wonder how long this shop has had these great poster windows? I first saw them in a photo in the Guardian earlier this week, and then someone else snapped the same scene and made me feel better about getting my own version.
Today's route started at Marble Arch, zig zagged through Mayfair to Parliament and over to Lambeth. Nothing at all interesting happened, really nothing - but in these times doesn't walking through central London just do you such good?
And so to home on the almost-empty-apart-from-me number 3 bus.

#oxfordstreet #westend #london #russellandbromley #streetphotography #street #fujifilm #lightroom

The Scream, St Martin's Lane Another city walk fro

The Scream, St Martin's Lane
Another city walk from Westminster where nowt was happening via Trafalgar Square where one bloke asked me if I knew the Sun newspaper's office and wandered off once I assured him I wasn't a paparazzo, and then a woman with an Instagram page asked if I could give her some photos. Excitement over, it was on up St Martin's Lane to Oxford Street and some unsuccessful shopping for a beanie hat (I'm fussy). And so to Bond Street station and the tube / train home.

#scream #thescream #blokescarryingstuff #streetphotography #streetscenes #london #westminster #stmartinslane #lightroom #fujifilm

November light A cold but brilliant morning for a

November light
A cold but brilliant morning for a walk, from London Bridge via the Barbican (a nice chat about architecture with the old chap approaching the camera), then via St Pauls, Fleet Street and down to Westiminster where I decided not to infringe the liberties of the 3 anti-vax protesters by photographing them (they probably believe photographs steal their remaining braincells). And so to the number 3 bus home.

#November #barbican #brutalism #architecture #lightroom #fujifilm

South London's ever-changing T34 #remembranceday

South London's ever-changing T34

#remembranceday #remembrance #tank #bricklayersarms #southlondon #fujifilm #lightroom

In over 30 years living in London, I’ve never se

In over 30 years living in London, I’ve never seen the annual Lord Mayor’s Show. Is that odd? I don’t know, but in fact until this morning I don’t believe it’s ever crossed my mind. After the last two years though, I look for any excuse to venture out of my leafy corner of London and feel normality returning - the photography seems almost incidental. Just as conversations no longer seem dominated by Covid - people talk again about their recent holiday, the friends they’ve met, the films they’ve seen - protests seem to be a sign that we’re finally moving on to other subjects. So while a few “patriotic” onlookers chose to argue with the Extinction Rebellion protestors, for me their presence was almost therapeutic. Bumping into a friend’s son, who has been one of the group’s leading voices, it didn’t take him long to ask “You didn’t come for the parade, did you?”

PS I think the ferret was with the demonstrators, but you never know.

#lordmayorsshow #London #cityoflondon #extinctionrebellion #extinctionrebellionlondon #climatechange #lightroom #fujifilm

Poppy red After the Armistice Day ceremony at West

Poppy red
After the Armistice Day ceremony at Westminster Abbey I wondered if any veterans would wander past the Virginia Creeper on Horse Guards Parade bunker. Not many did, and that's not a Hitler salute!

#armisticeday #autumncolours #virginiacreeper #london #whitehall #horseguardsparade #red #poppy #fujifilm #lightroom

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