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The many faces of London. As seen from inside the Tower of London.

Borough of Paddington

Sunny Tuesday walk in Little Venice.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Paddington isn't a borough anymore. Isn't it in the borough of Westminster? Perhaps things have just changed a bit since 1900. Not unlikely.

Parliament all lit up

'Nuff said.

Senate House Library

This is the very impressive University of London Senate House Library in Bloomsbury.

According to wikipedia, it was used by the Ministry of Information during the Second World War and inspired George Orwell's depiction of the Ministry of Truth in 1984. I've also heard tell (though I have not had it confirmed) that Hitler thought it was an excellent work of fascist architecture and planned to use it as his headquarters if he ever managed to occupy Great Britain.

Despite some of these negative undertones, I really like this building. Possibly my current favorite in the Bloomsbury area. Much more interesting than the business-as-usual Classical revivalism of my own University College London.

The White Goat

A brand new bit of public art just outside Spitalfields Market. The goat is meant to represent the waves of immigrants to the East London area over the years. Though, I'm afraid I don't really understand how...

19 Princelet Street

This is 19 Princelet Street in Spitalfields. It's supposed to be a museum about the waves of immigrants that have come to this area of East London from the 17th century onwards. Instead, it's slowly crumbling due to lack of funding and is only open to the public a few days out of the year. If you have an interest in the rich immigrant history of London and have an income larger than mine (read: any income at all), consider giving them a few quid to help fix this place up and build some permanent exhibits. It seems like they have the potential to be an incredible museum, much like the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York. I can't think why they're having so much trouble raising money.

Truman tower

Gloomy as all get out in Spitalfields. The Truman tower marks the building that served as the Truman brewery for a while and, before that, as a brick factory over on--you guessed it--Brick Lane. Now it holds the Sunday food market.

Hungry?

Myriad options at Camden Market on a rainy day.

Evening walk

Heading home from work along Bedford Square in Bloomsbury.

I go to school around here and spent the better part of last summer looking at Google Street View images of these places to get ready for my new neighborhood. I've gotten fairly used to it now, but occasionally a spot of evening sunshine will light something up and remind me why I was so enchanted in the first place.

The End

Just in case you need to know the way.

pathway

Pathway leading up towards the Baptist Church in Hampstead.

Mermaid?

Looks like this should be on the bow of a ship. Instead it's on the side of a house in Hampstead. This house was once occupied by the gentleman who wrote the Eton Boating Song, according to the plaque on the wall. Fancy that.

Blue Door

I seem to go through phases of shooting different neighborhoods. It's probably because I have single days where I'm really productive and then a dry spell for a week, so all my photos are concentrated on whatever I did on that one day.

Keeping that in mind, we just had a slew of photos from Primrose Hill. The next several will come from my old standby, the Hampstead Heath area. It's been cloudy as all get out for the last two weeks (as a chronic hypochondriac, I'm beginning to worry I'm developing a Vitamin D deficiency), but I finally managed to drag my photographing butt outside because I was running out of material for the blog. Enjoy!

Coincidentally, by favorite hangout back home is the Blue Door Pub. Check it out if you ever find yourself in the Twin Cities area. Killer cajun tater tots.

Bridge

The bridge over the train tracks in Primrose Hill, painted quite nicely.

Mock Tudor

Mock Tudor is a popular style of home architecture both here and abroad, but this version of the look, spotted in ritzy Primrose Hill, is a kind of Arts and Crafts re-conceptualization of the style. The black lines are barely trying to look like fifteenth-century supporting beams and are there purely for the aesthetic value. Kind of reminds me of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's work.

Pink-ish Orange-ish Tiger

A bit of public art near Chalk Farm Road.

So much niiiiighttime

When the sun sets around 4, you get a lot of night pictures, whether you want them or not.

Banksy: the First!

I found my first Banksy! Or, at any rate, a very good Banksy lookalike.

Evening

Some nice sunset light on some nice pastel-colored houses at Primrose Hill.

Shard #2

An early January view from Primrose Hill. See the Shard again? Sticking up amid the much shorter buildings in the rightish part of the picture. That thing is seriously going to dominate the skyline come 2012. Maybe I'll try to document its rise over the next several months...

Hyde Park Corner

The subway at Hyde Park Corner (that is, the underground walking paths and not the tube) is decorated with these murals depicting the lives of important dead men. I think Wellington is in here somewhere. I don't remember whose life this one is supposed to represent, but I liked the crowd scene with the selectively colored-in people. I'm impressed that these murals don't seem to have suffered at the hands of graffiti artists at all.

Got a nickel?

The last in a quick series of three photos from my home state of Minnesota. Snapped this shot of a row of public telephone booths in a local restaurant in Rochester, MN. Or, rather, what used to be a row of public telephone booths.

Mall of America

The second in a series of three winter shots from my hometown; just for the variety, ya know. The Mall of America was all decked out at Christmastime. This mall--the largest in the United States when it opened in 1992--is just my local mall. No big deal.

Tik Tok

A quick jaunt over to good ol' Minne-snow-ta for some winter shots in my hometown. Spotted this awesome license plate. Too bad it's misspelled. Unless that person's name is actually "Keisha." In which case, that kinda sucks.

More tapestries

A close-up of the tapestries in the Tapestries Room at V&A. I posted a picture of the room as a whole back here.

Melted cheese

After a long day museum-ing, what better way to refuel than with a melted cheese sandwich at the Kappacasein stall in Borough Market. Heaven for a mere £5.

Egg chair

The so-called egg chair in the modern art bit of the V&A. I like it juxtaposed with the museum's Victorian neo-Classical building facade seen out the window.

Tapestries

I find the tapestries room in the V&A to be oddly soothing. Nice lighting, colorful tapestries, and the smell of mustiness and aging fabric. Lovely.

Great Men of the Past

Decorations on the stairwell at the Victoria & Albert Museum commemorate some great artists of the past. Stay tuned for pictures of some of the things you can see at the V&A.

Gandhi

The statue of Gandhi in Tavistock Square after a dusting of snow.

one-one-oneone!

This blog has really not been going for very long, so it seemed a bit silly to post a Picture of the Year as the January 1 Theme Day. So instead I've chosen this image of a sunny dawn over north London. Pretend it has some metaphorical meaning related to the new dawn of 2011.

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