Copic Colour Captures
Copic Colour Captures
Copic Colour Captures
Copic Marker and Ohto Fineliner pen captures of city life from travels around the world. These feature the outlines of people, describing that space as something individual and peculiar only to that person. And yet, that figure is sometimes lost in layers of other similar occupants.
Copic Marker and Ohto Fineliner pen captures of city life from travels around the world. These feature the outlines of people, describing that space as something individual and peculiar only to that person. And yet, that figure is sometimes lost in layers of other similar occupants.
Copic Marker and Ohto Fineliner pen captures of city life from travels around the world. These feature the outlines of people, describing that space as something individual and peculiar only to that person. And yet, that figure is sometimes lost in layers of other similar occupants.
Classic City Captures
Queen’s Queue Captures
Once the proposed route, structure and subsequent spectacle of the queue to visit the lying-in – state of the late Queen Elizabeth the second was announced, I was immediately interested in capturing this scenario.
Not just many thousands of people standing in a queue to go somewhere, but more so their shared experience of a place and time. This, from the very beginnings, just below Lambeth Bridge, to a later beginning, past Southwark. In common with my previous works around the world and, more recently, captures of London scenes during lockdown and beyond, I often find it fascinating in trying to suggest a place playing host to multiple layers of ‘visitors’, all experiencing the same place, but all having a slightly different experience. And, in turn, being part of the place themselves in fleeting moments which can never be recreated.
Subsequently the place would entertain more usual, everyday visitors, after the queue had gone. And, as a result, had another, different identity. This identity created by those there, experiencing the place but maybe, like me, thinking of those who had been there before. Maybe.
I therefore visited 6 sites, where I could capture this once in a lifetime experience and resultant contrast. I managed to get many, many images of the queue in these locations, then went back over the following week to photograph the subsequent activity there at similar times. In all 6 drawings the queue are represented by the black outlines, whereas the figures drawn in white or coloured outlines show what I saw during my ensuing visits…
1. The Queen’s Walk, Tower Bridge
I chose this area due to its name and it seemed a median starting point- it also provided an iconic backdrop. Like all in this project, I almost have to work in reverse, in that the first thing I draw is the last thing I capture via photo – the empty background, followed by the shapes of the people queuing, and finally the everyday folk back occupying the space as usual…”
2. Belvedere Road, County Hall
This was the second site I chose, where the queue ran parallel with the South Bank, eventually crossing at the junction outside St Thomas’ Hospital. This is an area probably not usually well known, not really much more than a peripheral part of more well known local attractions on the South Bank- the London Eye- this road being crossed en route from nearby Waterloo Station. The figures in black outline are both the queue and also those ensuring order was maintained- stewards and police officers… The resultant figure captures- in white- are those living and working in the area, maybe folk going to or from appointments at the hospital.
3. Westminster Bridge
The third drawing looks across Westminster Bridge to the Houses of Parliament with the Queen Elizabeth tower, housing Big Ben, at the centre. The queue kept left, slightly more spaced out now, before suddenly disappearing down the steps to the Albert Embankment. I think those in the queue realised that they were now close to the ultimate destination, although in reality there were many hours ahead. Figures in russet hue outlines suggest the tourists and others later to occupy the spaces there, with, for me, the most striking thing being the numerous green tones of the trees in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital. Despite it being mid- September, no real sign of Autumn in the leaves.
4. Covid Memorial Wall
Drawing number 4 in this series looks back along the queue from Albert Embankment- halfway between Westminster Bridge and Lambeth Bridge, which they will soon use to cross the Thames. Again, a verdant cover offered by the trees, the queue represented by black outlines but orange outline figures taking their place. These figures show, once the queue had gone, this area returning to its usual persona- joggers, workers on break and those viewing the National COVID Memorial wall, featuring approximately 150000 red and pink hearts, each representing a life lost.
5. Lambeth Bridge
The penultimate site was midway across Lambeth Bridge, before the queue then poured right, down the steps into gardens. White outline figures show, a matter of hours later, dog walkers, joggers and everyday folk doing everyday things, the queue now just a memory, it’s transience experienced by all in it, in different ways, at different times… I wonder how many looked up at the obelisks – pine cones? pineapples? Masonic symbols?- at either end of the bridge and wondered about them?
6. Victoria Tower Gardens
