Is it possible to feel nostalgia for times you haven’t lived through? Somehow, this did it for me: London 1927 from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.
May 092013
Apr 152013
So I’m here! I’ve had just over ten days in the new flat now, and while I need to get a sofa, my pictures are not up, and it’s going to take weeks and weeks to get phone and internet installed, I’m pretty well settled now. It’s the first time I’ve ever lived on my own, or had my own place, but it’s amazing how quickly one adapts to these things; already I’ve taken to it so well it’s hard to think about how things were before. The move wasn’t all smooth. It was never going to be when I had to fetch stuff from three locations, and that was Read full post >>
Mar 022013
An assignment from my photography course: images of motion. Panning the camera to follow moving things is easy once you get the hang, though getting a well-composed shot outside Holborn station was a question of patience: the vehicles of all kinds were competing with each other for space, in the photo as in life. These are probably the best three, all of cyclists.
Feb 192013
I’ve written before about times when life serves up an unexpected treat, something you might be lucky enough to catch if you have your eyes open and are carrying a camera. For me, a lot of those moments seem to happen on bridges in London.
Jan 302013
I’ve started a photography evening class, to try and make sure that some of what I do with my free time doesn’t resemble work. When I was a teenager I did quite a lot of black-and-white film photography. I was not a terribly happy teenager at boarding school, and like many teenagers I used to retreat to a dark room to get away from myself. There was something I really liked about the methodical nature of the work: developing films, finding my way around in complete blackness and in red light, and watching the images appear like magic in the developing tray. Later me and my dad built a darkroom in Read full post >>
Nov 012012
Very shortly after my 30th birthday, when I still lived in Brussels, I went for a haircut. I don’t like having my hair cut, and I never feel very at ease; when I was about 15 a barber’s scissors nicked the corner of my ear, which then spouted scarlet until I turned green. It’s hard enough explaining how I want it cut in English, let alone French, and when the barber, with a heavy Maghreb accent and words I could not remember started gesturing with his scissors towards my eyes, I had a sort of embarrassed panic before realising that he was trying to ask if I wanted my eyebrows Read full post >>