In the late '90's I had an apartment in Galaxy Towers, Gutenberg, New Jersey, looking out on Manhattan from the 2nd highrise from the right in this picture. Had I been there this afternoon I might have got a great shot of US Airways flight 1549 ditching in the Hudson. Alas. The shot below I took from a ferry like the ones at the rescue, looking north to the GW Bridge with New Jersey left and Manhattan right.

Update: Imagine the stricken plane gliding down over the GW Bridge. Apparently the plane came within 600 feet of the bridge, but it was ok as the pilot, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III, had the presence of mind to hold his EasyPass up to the cockpit window.

Venice pix:

I rented an apartment from a lady from Ohio on VRBO.com .

Shad Thames is a small neighbourhood by the south side of Tower Bridge in London. This post is parochial, but it gives me the chance to publicise my photography.

These notes are illustrated in this gallery

In Shad Thames the sloping balconies stack up at mad angles to sensational effect. Still, it's not trivial to make a decent image. The light is typically unyielding, either overcast and undifferentiated or high contrast such that the dynamic range from the dark, narrow canyon to the bright,white top of Butlers Wharf exceeds what a camera can handle without High Dynamic Range techniques which look surreal. Go with the glow; shoot backlit effects with light seeping round the metal balconies. This is effective while the morning sun casts long shadows of the balconies onto the side walls of the canyon, first one wall then the other. In between the sun shines straight down the canyon, floodlighting the balconies and some of the street furniture. There's often a cluster of Biffa bins at the Curlew Street corner at that time. They're incandescent in the sun. When a trashtruck moves up the street, it slots in nicely beneath the stacked up balconies. Don't forget the brightly coloured jackets of the parking wardens.

I'm collating a book of images from around Shad Thames in London. In a converted warehouse nearby called Hay's Galleria there's a statue called The Navigators by artist David Kemp. I was composing a shot of this work when a tourist came into the frame and wouldn't budge. Eventually I took the snap with him in it. When I saw the image on screen I realised that the interloper resembled the sculpture, so I conversed a little with David Kemp about it. During the banter we discovered a certain shared affinity for cormorants and he drew my attention to this ditty by Christopher Isherwood, also attributed to Edward Lear:

The Common Cormorant
The common cormorant (or shag)
Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
You follow the idea, no doubt?
It's to keep the lightning out.

But what these unobservant birds
Have never thought of, is that herds
Of wandering bears might come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

The sign at the entrance to Auschwitz has been stolen. I took these photos of the bars of a cell window in the punishment block, almost the last sight of many, and of Israeli students leaving through the entrance.

Prisoners in Auschwitz ridiculed the German cynicism of the slogan by saying Arbeit Macht Frei durch den Schornstein (Work brings freedom through the chimney).

UPDATE - found.

I compare the winning shot and runner up shot in last week's Daily Telegraph photo competition, theme 'Bridges',  with images found by a quick search on Flickr to show that the winning shots are familiar treatments of famous scenes:

I did win a couple of weeks ago to my surprise with the theme 'Tall'.

At the end of April I'll be touring Iceland with another photographer, so I'm happy to read that a volcano's erupted. It's right beside this glacier where I was in 2007:

Our trip will head first for Snæfellsjökull, the highest mountain and the entrance for Jules Verne's 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth'. if any Anatreptic readers feel passionately attracted to such a trip, I'll be happy to talk about it - Iceland that is, not the Centre of the Earth.

The Shard of Glass, tallest building in the UK or Europe is being built at London Bridge Station near my apartment. The borough is Borough (whence Chaucer's Pilgrims set off to Canterbury) and the area is Southwark where Shakespeare lived, worked and made pots of money at the Globe Theatre. Here are some shots of the work in progress taken in late afternoon gloom. The core is now the same height as the vile piece of concrete brutalism across the road known as Guy's Hospital, a filing cabinet to die in. So vile and so brutal is Guy's that I want it preserved as counterpoint to The Shard. Anyway for lovers of big cranes:

I'm scheduled to fly to Iceland a week from now, but all UK flights and many others are halted by the ash blown across from a second, much bigger eruption:

Vulcanologists are concerned about further, giganticker eruptions as the subterranean magma rivers gurgle around from volcano to volcano. I certainly don't want Iceland to blow up entirely before I've been and gone. After all I rather approve of the Icelanders telling the UK and Netherlands "can't pay, won't pay" in relation to their busted banks; they should just pay what they promised on the sticker to guarantee, as they've agreed, not induce further moral hazard by bailing out the improvident.

Here's a shot from my trip 3 years ago of the mountain that's presently erupting:

This is the mid-Atlantic rift shown near the site of the world's first parliament:

You'd expect such weird geology to make an island rather numinous. Here's the sort of thing the Icelandic numina get up to:

Now I'm on a roll, so I'll re-post a poem from my last visit:

Rhubarb's a stem and not a fruit,
Prunes and muesli make you toot,
But snorchestras will drown out wind.
Allegedly (I'm not convinced)
Box jellyfish aren't jellyfish and
Greenland is further east than Iceland.
A Minister of Elvish Matters
Defines the routes of roads and detours.
Dottirs and ssons of Irish slaves
Kill foxes, whales, whatever moves,
And there's a certain charm in grimness,
Tax evasion, drunken primness,
Strapping horses, strapping women.
Real men who smell of fish and semen.
Volcanic science,
Car-mangling giants,
Fire and ice,
I think it's nice.

I was shooting balconies in Shad Thames, London, yesterday morning, squatting low down among the fag ends, when a voice said "Do you want to take our photo?" It was 3 young french guys who work at Pont de la Tour Restaurant. So I took this shot:

Then I realised they were all hiding their cigarettes, which was why they'd been loitering outside, so I told them to show the cigarettes, which made them look frenchier esp the middle one:

The name of the one on the left is Nicolas Clerc and I took him a few prints today - he was happy.
The punchline is that Nicolas was 'Sommelier of the Year 2007'. See this story. In return he gave me a bottle of red which I'm enjoying now. It's not often one gets given a bottle of wine by the Sommelier of the Year and it's not really vin ordinaire !

And here's a cormorant shot from the same morning for good luck, Tower Bridge and St Paul's nicely bokehed behind:

The Shard will be the tallest building in Britain and Europe. It's by London Bridge,  a few minutes' walk from my London apartment. Here's an album.