Bleeding London City: Here and There

This week I was mostly photographing Barbican, but on a few occasions ventured around a bit. First of was Whitecross Place, just off Finsbury Avenue Square. I saw a really nice picture of this place (better than mine) on the Flick Bleeding London group page, and realised that I hadnt photographed it, even though I had marked it off on the map. Thus I thought I had better shoot it quick.

On the same morning, before I work, I finally photographed Great Winchester Street (GWS). GWS is almost opposite where I work and is the location of Deutsche Bank; there are lots of security guards here, mostly by the goods entrance, and although not intimidating, I did think they would try to stop the shot I had in mind. In the end I went for something different, the entrance to the bank, with no bother at all.

The next day I had a meeting in Canary Wharf and got the DLR to Bank station on the way back to work. On the way back to the office I managed a couple of quick shots. The first is of the bank of England on the corner of Prince's Street and Lothbury; I not actually sure which of the two this is actually on, but since I have already photographed Lothbury, I am counting it as Prince's Street. This shot is merged from two separate shots, one exposed for the building, the other exposed for the sky. I then used layers and a mask to merge the two in Photoshop Elements.

The other shot I managed on my way back to the office was of St. Margaret's Close, which is gated closed. The close runs up the side of St. Margaret's church and there has been a church on this site since the 12th Century. The current church was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1692, the previous one having been destroyed by the Great Fire of London.

Friday was the sort of light I had been hoping for when photographing Barbican - strong sunlight and no cloud which would cast some great shadows from all the concrete pillars. However I wanted to get home a little earlier and I knew I would get too consumed by photography at Barbican, so I decided to walk to Tower Hill, picking out a few streets on the map prior to leaving the office. First on my route was Hartshorn Alley, an unusual alley that runs between Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street. It is obviously one of those old alleys that has been preserved even though a new building has been erected over it, which I think is great. What is strange though is that on the Fenchurch Street side there is a Coral Bookmakers that seemingly has no entrance. The entrance though is about half way down the alley, and in my picture below, the man is checking his betting slip or winnings having just come out of the shop.

Directly opposite the bookmakers on Fenchurch Street, was the scene below. It was the first sign of sleeping rough that I had seen since I started this project and I felt compelled to take a shot of it, though I think I had already included two shots of Fenchurch Street previously.

Down the side of this empty shop is Northumberland Alley. The shot below was taken here but is actually a side alley of sorts connecting to Lloyd's Avenue - I did check and it didnt have its own unique name, but I do have another shot of Northumberland Alley just in case!

The Fratres Cruciferi (Brethren of the Cross) are a Roman Catholic religious order. There were four main independent branches of Fratres Cruciferi, one of which is Cruchted Friars. Some settled in London in 1249 giving there name to a Street which still bears the name today.