Upping the pace again

After getting back into the swing of things, I decided to up the pace a bit. I'm hoping that I will be able to finish by the end of April or early May.

I have a few pockets of areas where I have a few remaining streets to shoot. One of these is behind Barbican, around St. Bart's hospital, and I tried to complete to this area one morning before work.

The first street I shot was Bartholomew Close which is a  longish U shaped road. I had been around here a couple of times and was not really inspired. On this occasion I managed a couple of shots. The first is just a bike rack and a puddle which really doesn't sound very exciting, but I'm really pleased with this shot. I think it is a good example of how my eye for detail has improved over the course of this project and I think this is partly down to having to take a picture of every single street - finding something worthy of raising the camera is not always easy. I don't always get a good image or one that I am overly happy with, but I think doing that on every street is nigh on impossible.

An example of where my eye for detail was not quite so good was just around the corner on Halfmoon Court. There was not a lot to shoot here, but I decided to take the image below of some signs outside a car park. I think the main thing that intrigued me here was the sign saying "Dry Falling main car park" which sounds a bit ominous and like it may not be a great place to stand. I had no idea what it meant, but couldn't help looking upwards. On googling the term now I think it may have something to do with fire protection equipment.

One other street I had previously missed out is Smithfield Street, which as the name suggests, is close to Smithfield market.

That was all of  I manged to shoot on that particular morning. There are two streets left to photograph in that area, both of which are partly closed off due to construction work and which I have so far struggled for inspiration.

A couple of days later I wandered around the Cannon Street Area for a bit. The are a couple of  streets here named after a Laurence Pountney,  presumably they are named after the St. Laurence Pountney church. This church is no longer, and was destroyed during the great fire of London. However an eye witness claims that the church fire started from with inside, implying arson. Laurence Pountney Lane is one of the couple of street I photographed on this day, where I shot some shadows from a tree.

From here a little alley leads to Laurence Pountney Hill (still to photograph) and Suffolk Lane. The shot below was taken at the side of Prudential's headquarters. The footpath leads to a bridge that crosses Upper Thames Street.

Also close by is Gophir Lane.

On the other side of Cannon Street Station is Dowgate Hill, named after the Dowgate Ward of the city.

A bit further along Cannon Street, I came to Queen Street which I had already photographed previously. The image below is not particularly good, but I liked the fact that the Dominos delivery motorbikes where all in a line leaning over, a bit like dominoes.

Walking back down Dowgate Hill, and crossing Upper Thames Street, leads onto Cousin Lane.

I then headed back up the hill a little and turned onto College Street.

College Street then turns into Skinners Lane, where I took my favorite image of the day.

On my way back to the office I took a minor detour to Cheapside to photograph Crown Court. This was a little courtyard that I had previously missed and only noticed when filling in my map.

A Shot in the dark

The clocks going back an hour has made things a little more difficult. since it is dark before I finish work. Some locations lend themselves to (hand held) night photography, but others are impossible. This post has some images from my first shoot in the evening since the clocks changed.

The first image is from Change Alley, which is one of several alleys between Cornhill and Lombard Street. At first glance on the map it would seem to be at least 3 different streets, which makes up for some of the many streets that I have found to not be on the maps at all.

Parallel to here is Pope's Head Alley, named after the Pope's Head Tavern which stood here from  1465 till at least the 18th Century. During the reformation the inn was renamed the Bishops Head, before changing its name back again.

Down past the Bank of England, and at No. 1 Poultry, there is an alley connecting Poultry with Queen Victoria Street called Bucklersbury Passage. Unlike the passage there are some interesting facts about No.1 Poultry; It features a rooftop restaurant and garden which can be seen in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012 when James Bond escorts the queen from Buckingham Palace to the Ceremony by helicopter. It also seems to be a popular place to commit suicide with four fatalities in recent years.

The last shot from this particular evening is one of those that presented a dilemma as to which street it belongs. It was taken on the junction of Queen Street and Cheapside; I was standing on Queen Street but the image shows more of Cheapside. Not quite realising at the time how long Queen Street was, I made the executive decision that there were possibly more photographic opportunities on Cheapside, and therefore I would count this as Queen Street.

A couple of days later I left early for work, got the tube to Bank and tackled a few more of the alleys and streets off Cornhill. First was Cowper's Court of which there is not too much to say. 

Turning left here and a bit further along Birchin Lane is Castle Court a lovely little alley, where at number 3 stands the George and Vulture Inn; Chaucer and Dick Whittington are said to have frequented, and Charles Dickens may well have done as it is referred to in the Pickwick Papers.

One of the streets connecting Cornhill with Threadneedle Street is Royal Exchange Buildings. It is a pedestrianised street at the rear of the Royal Exchange. The image below shows one of the twenty or so BT telephone boxes from around the country that were painted green in 2013 to commemorate sixty years since the Samaritans were formed.

A bit further up Cornhill is Sun Court, a small courtyard, most of which fits in the image below.

On another evening after work I managed to photograph a few more streets before heading home. The image below is of Poultry, which later turns into the much longer Cheapside. The image shows No.1 Poultry in the background mentioned earlier in this post.

A bit further along from here and on the right is Old Jewry, named after Jewish immigrants who populated the area after encouragement from William the Conqueror.

As mentioned above Poultry turns into Cheapside, a much longer street. The image below was take outside some shops fairly close to St. Paul's Cathedral.

And that is my final image of this post and also of October, which means I am almost  (but not quite) up to date with my blogging. Below is the updated progress map.