Advertisement
I haven't done much sight seeing since my last entry, because I've been trying to focus on my assignment (which is, after all, why I am here in the first place!). For each country we visit, we focus on a different aspect of photography. While we're in London we're focusing on photojournalism and our assignment is to focus on an area of interest within a square mile of where we live. My original idea was to do London street fashion, because I love fashion and I thought it showed the diversity of the city well. However I really struggled with this, especially after the attempted bombings... I felt like everyone had better things to worry about than a story on fashion in London. Plus I just wasn't getting the shots I wanted. I went for a walk to clear my head and on the way I discovered this really beautiful hotel. All of the architecture in London is striking, but the Hotel Russell stands out even more. So this is what I'm doing my story on, and I'm going into the lobby and speaking with travelers and hopefully I'll be able to speak with the Concierge when he's not too
busy. This assisnment poses a lot of challenges as well, but I feel better equipped to handle them than with the fashion story. For instance, this is a very high class hotel, and they have a gorgeous bar that is screaming to be photographed. But since London is kind of class concious, and since I am so very obviously not upper class, I need to figure out a way to not stand out. Yesterday when I was there I could see people from the bar staring at me wondering what the hell I was doing in the hotel, and I was only in the lobby! But I did have a nice (well, sort of nice) conversation with a woman who was waiting to leave the hotel. We discussed how beautiful the hotel was, and she told me how they're trying to modernize it, which disappoints her and it was all nice and dandy. Then we started discussing traveling and she starts saying how not enough Americans get out and travel and if they do, they mostly travel within the country. I kind of agreed with her and I kind of wanted to smack her in the face. I agree with
her that not many Americans travel abroad all that much, but at the same token Europe is much more accessible for traveling to other countries for much cheaper. America is very isolated and there is so much to see within the country, it's understandable why they travel within the country. I strongly believe that everyone should travel abroad at least once in their life for certain. I just had a problem with her attitude about it, and I don't think she considered that a lot of Americans don't travel abroad because of money and time constraints. And everyone has a reason for doing, or not doing, what they do. It's a tough call. One thing that frusterates me about London is that I feel kind of ashamed to be an American, and I don't think I should have to. I obviously can't hide the fact that I'm American because of my accent, but I hate having people know that because I feel like there's a certain stigma that goes along with it. Don't get me wrong, people are very friendly and everything here, but I still feel that way sometimes. You can't impress everybody. So I need to go back
and take a lot more photos, and I'll be really glad when this assignment is done. In other news, yesterday Grace Robertson spoke to us, and she was absolutely the most charming and exciting woman I have ever met. What I loved most about her was the fact that she didn't have any boundaries, and she wasn't confined by rules. Plus her photos were very stunning and genuine and you should all check out her work. She also mentioned Martin Munkocsi in her lecture, who is one of my favorite photographers and actually her work reminded me of his once she mentioned him. I'm really glad I spoke with her because lately I have been having very fluctuating feelings about my photography, mostly because I don't think I'm taking enough chances with it, and it shows in my work. But she had this great attitude about her shoots and she made whatever she wanted to happen, happen. So I guess I just need to work hard through this rough patch in my photography life. But right now I must be off to see Buckingham Palace.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0388s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb