Just faintly spooky

Bridge

I find it hard to pass the Millenium Footbridge without taking photos. While it used to be the architecture of the bridge, its long, lazy leap across the Thames and the shadowy heft of its underside,  now it's more often the people: above me, in movement, outlined, sometimes  poignantly, against the sky.

on the bridge

time stops and distance shrinks

their hands touch

White water

 

to be imagined:

the floating fading colours

of lemon lime mint

Dutch light in London

In the odd little riverside microclimate of the South Bank and its irredeemably ugly concrete arts complex, the light can be surprising and extraordinary.

Around the lake

 

  

Around the lake, an Autumn forest of tousled gold and green and purple.

more photos
 

 

 

 

while the tall reeds

and flowers sway softly

the heron stands still

 

 

Cat's eyes

 

 

 

 

 

Painted by a shy September sun

 

The sunshine has been rich and soft, if infrequent. Both when the sun shone and when it didn't, September's light was perfect for taking photos and I found I'd taken some I rather liked and that perhaps cohere around a certain mood.

Is it very sad, or very weird, to say that taking photos reassures me that I'm still alive? I think I felt a bit better about this after reading Loren on the twelfth anniversary of starting his blog, which is one of my favourites, full of wisdom, skill and joy in life. "Blogging is the mental equivalent of regular exercise.", he wrote, "Forcing myself to write here has kept me more alive than I ever thought possible." An intensely practical way of putting it, and I knew at once what he meant. It's how I feel about taking photos and how I felt for a long time about blogging.

 

So here we are again. I'm not sure right now if I'll be returning here for the long term or having a go at something else. But having a go at something. Making shapes and pictures with words and with my camera is too important, too fundamental, to walk away from.

A selection of September photos is here - best viewed as a slideshow.