Let us go then, you and I.
When the evening is spread out against the sky
like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets…
-T.S. Eliot
Passion
Hanging above bank station from a red crane that pulsates with foggy light warning off incoming aircraft, the metal making slow groaning sounds as the bitterly chill wind nudges the structure into a gentle sway, I look down at the bank of England and hear a cacophony of voices in the city.
But the voices I hear are not of the screaming hordes of city bankers, roping in whithered lovers for an evening of lust soon to be forgotten or morphed into office scandal, they are the voices of the past, explorers who walked these city streets in ours and other ages, who crawled into the dark folds of urban architectures looking for crack, photographs, walls to graph or poetry. I connect with myriad individuals who share my love for plenitude, the inanimate animated.
Dickens was a fellow nighttime crawler, a man wrapped up in a perpetual dream, an explorer of the uncanny who felt “a solemn consideration when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses it’s own secret; that in every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there is, in some of its imaginings, a secret the the heart nearest it!”
Heart of hearts
Delving
Our secret is here, looking down on the city we work in, play in; the place where we encounter life in all it monstrous forms. And Dickens stands here with me, laughing at the audacity of this adventure, an approving smirk cracking his extravagant goatee.
I used to think of infiltration as an masochistic incarnation of urban exploration, a pale shadow of experience, disconnected from roots to history or respect for those that walked before us. But up here, staring down at this city that I am courting, the only city that has replaced my perpetual desire to be intimately attached to another human being, the city of blissful isolation where everyone minds their own fucking business, I am in love with the history of this moment and with the workers who are building our future, one brick at a time.
Building our future
In our limited time here on the planet, we can choose to stumble through life, working our job, drinking our beer in front of the blaring television in the darkness of “off-time”, blissfully uncaring. We can remain wrapped in an Indian Ashram, walking circles in the garden, in perpetual meditation for meaning, eschewing the trajectory of the age. Or we can hit back, head on, at the age in which we live, mining it for meaning and finding answers to questions both small and large, wherever those journeys may take us. None of these ways of life are better than another. They are just different, little epitaphs to tombs not yet constructed.
What luck!
The last time I watched The Big Lebowsky, I was stuck anew by the opening narration from the Old Timer:
“…Sometimes there’s a man…who, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there.”
One day I may ask for your love London, but for now, thank you for returning my lust. For the first time in my life, I fit right in there.
Always yours,
The Goblinmerchant
Beautiful shots, really breathtaking.
[...] (image credits:Bradley Garrett) [...]
london is a crap hole
I suppose you prefer Nashville or Little Rock?
[...] © Bradley Garrett [...]
Bradley,
I am new to photography. What kind of camera, lense or anything else do you use to get these types of shots?
Thanks
Thanks for leaving a note Curtis. I am shooting with a Nikon D90 and in these shots a Sigma 10-20mm lens. It is a very nice setup for exploring. Basically, you want to shoot on aperture priority and adjust you aperture as needed depending on light (or lack thereof). From there, its just fine tuning and trail and error. Good luck with it!
Oh and above all get a nice tripod!
Any post effects?
Nope, just a border added!
Any hints to what types of lenses or camera you use?
Thanks for the reply Bradley. I appreciate the feedback.
Bradley,
Another question if I may? Do you shoot these shots manual? If so, what settings, f-stop and ISO and speed? I live in LA and I’d like to shoot some roof shops in LA that would compare.
Thanks,
Curtis
No problem! At night I generally shoot at F3.5 and then adjust shutter speed as necessary. I shoot ISO auto normally and grab it in RAW, then I can change the ISO in photoshop if needed. Usually though, I find the D90 does a pretty good job with ISO.
gorgeous photos! i just started an urban exploration blog of New York City. Check it out if youd like.
urbansetting.wordpress.com
keep up the amazing work!
Love these photos! and what a cool blog as well!
Thank you Amy!
Oh wow, I just had a look at your website Amy, it’s beautifully done. Your book looks very interesting!
Did you happen to notice that I am working on a film project with a girl called Amy Cutler here in London (http://amycutler.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/5k-funding-exploring-londons-olympic-waterscape/) and have spent a modest amount of time on New York City rooftops (http://bradleygarrett.com/2010/03/24/empire/)? The strange intersections are confusing me horribly!