Earlier this week I had the opportunity to go down to London and visit my daughter, Linsay, who is currently working at the Houses of Parliament. It was good to catch up with her news and also to meet in person some of the people she is working with.
I especially enjoyed being given my own personal tour of "the corridors of power" with Linsay as my very own tour guide.
Of course, I couldn't take any photographs inside. But I did take the obligatory tourist-eye cliche snap of Big Ben, with its gilded stonework gleaming in the sunshine.
I wonder how many times this has been photographed?
I also wonder how many of the people who live in London ever actually look at it - or any of the other "sights" for that matter?
It's the same wherever you go around the world. The majority of the 'locals' just take for granted all the things that other people have travelled many miles to see. They no longer seem to 'see' them at all.
What good photographers are able to do, though, is make everybody see the most familiar of things in a new, and sometimes surprising, way. It's what all creative artists do. I think it's also what preachers are supposed to do.
It's not easy.
Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to share with Linsay - and even less time to think about creative photography - but I did try to look at one the latest London sights (the London Eye) from a few different angles. All from ground level I hasten to add. I tried to make use of the low sun, as if it was shining through the lampost, but it didn't quite work.
Ah, well... I guess I'll just have to take another trip down to London some time....
What I find sad is the way so many people seem to go through the whole of their lives failing to notice what is around them.
You only have to really look for a moment to see that every moment is unique and that even the most familiar sight is not the same as it was a moment ago. But if you plod along waiting for life to happen to you, you're going to waken up one morning and discover it has already rushed past you like water under a bridge.
3 comments:
You are so well travelled. Enjoying the pics and the observations. We all need to step back for a time and then return to a place where we can see again with fresh eyes.
You are so well travelled. Enjoying the pics and the observations. We all need to step back for a time and then return to a place where we can see again with fresh eyes.
Thanks for the comments. I guess it looks like I'm on the road all the time but in fact the pictures have been gathered over a few years. You're right, though. It is often only when we leave a place and return to it again that we see it as it truly is. I can't remember who it was who said that the best thing about travelling is returning home. It might have been G. K. Chesterton.
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