london open hbpc

London Open Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships took place in August 2010 and hopefully will become an annual event. Since the Open was one week after the Worlds in Berlin, teams from many countries were able to come and play in London. There are more pictures of the championships on Fixed Gear Krakow, Krakow's bicycle community blog I run, along with a commentary (in Polish.) If you're interested in Hardcourt Bike Polo go to Wikipedia or League of Bike Polo.

london: two from above turbine hall

Children taking advantage of the Interactive Zone on the top level of Tate Modern, overlooking Turbine Hall, the core of the old power station.

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ta. At tate modern observation deck, looking at St. Paul's and Millenium Bridge.

tate modern: the staircase

When, after a year of absence, I came back to Tate Modern I wanted to take the stairs again, instead of its crowded and smelly elevators. The staircase at the famed gallery in London is as much interesting as the building itself, formerly Bankside Power Station. Check out the picture taken there a year before here.

london: covent garden station

Covent Garden station gets particularly busy in the early evening, when thousands of theater-goers pass through its narrow entrance hall. Here, the street of Long Acre, looking toward the sunset.

london: nights in westminster

Neons of Soho and the golden "W", symbol of the borough of Westminster, engraved on a lamppost. In August, evenings were becoming quite nippy. During many nights in Central London.

london: pastel mini

Thanks to the red construction fence, reflection on the car's pastel paint made this shot look very vintage. Off Brick Lane in London.

london: rain

Portobello road shoppers seak refuge from a heavy rain shower on a Sunday afternoon. Actually, thanks to uncertain weather London's popular shopping area was not so crowded as it usually is on weekends.

bessa: more slovak tatras

Before I post more pictures from London, another shot from Slovak part of the Tatra mountains taken with my 1930s Voigtlander Bessa.

london: brothers

When I came across those guys, brothers was the first word that crossed my mind. You have to admit, there is a very clear connection between both their appearances. They were guarding a cellar vintage clothing store hidden beneath a cafe off Brick lane on a Sunday afternoon.

made you look

But what on earth were they all looking at! Didn't figure out back then, can't figure out now. Spotted on a Sunday afternoon on Portobello road.

london: young fighter

Another scene from the new Covent Garden sunday market in Vauxhall, London. It really struck me, my first thought was that his parents' friends' kids actually carry real guns somewhere in Africa...

london: nine pound babies

... and plastic headlights, nice combination. Both probably made by Chinese children for ten p each... Another insight into the new Covent Garden.

london: new covent garden

Back to London! I spent six weeks there in 2010. One of the first places I visited was the New Covent Garden market in Vauxhall. It's an incredible mix of goods, from food to bicycles, from ten pound Lacoste shoes to a family of friendly vacuum cleaners. We spent hours wandering through innumerable rows of items chewing on grilled corn cobs. More pictures to follow soon!

wroclaw: serowiec

During one of my few visits to Wroclaw last year. Serowiec (a polish name for a cheesecake, though here obviously referring to cheese itself) is the newest addition to the campus of Wroclaw University of Technology. Standing on the Banks of Odra, it's been a controversial neighbor to the landmark, 19th century buildings of Wroclaw Tech.

warsaw: couples

At the exhibition Ars Homo Erotica in the National Museum in Warsaw. This artwork was a collection of multiple photographs of homosexual couples in Poland. I managed to catch two museum workers aside it.

bessa: pleso

bessa: on the trail

One of the five pictures, I've taken with a vintage '30s Voigtlander Bessa camera. Another one is obviously digital, taken with my primary camera, a Canon DSLR. It's interesting how different and yet similar those two shots are. This picture was taken in the Slovak part of Tatra mountains (in the vicinity of Popradskie Pleso - the lake). In many mountain regions those hillocks mark trails, although in the Tatras they use paint to show where the path leads. This was probably built for some other reason...

voigtlander bessa

I've got this amazing piece of German design last summer. As far as I know it's a model from the thirties. It works with 6x9 film, so far I only had a chance to take 6 pictures (one full roll), one of which was underexposed (I switched to digital almost three years ago.) Expect some old fashioned photography soon!