Perous Secret Diary - Keep Out: November 04, 2005

i live here...

...well, almost.
actually, one of the bee gees lives here, looking out over this view but from a few storeys(?) higher.
me, crispin and frances just ate here by the side of the thames.
i've hardly been to any of the touristy places in london...perhaps i should: maybe in will.
i could shoot some postcards innit.

the paul mccarthy show at the whitechapel gallery and the 'off-site' warehouse show, off bricklane, made us all feel a bit queasy.
which was a shame because i'm a big fan and i wanted crispin to have a good time seeing paul's works.
it might not have been the best show to start the day with.
the off-site show was the site of the pre-recorded videos that were playing there: the sweet smell of chocolate sauce and ketchup combined and dried really catches you in the back of the throat and it looks the the scene of a bloodbath.
very dark.
but also of course, quite genius.

the diane arbus show at the V&A was amazing: the most comprehensive exhibition i have ever seen.
it truly made me feel unworthy to call myself a photographer.
it was very humbling...but also very inspiring.
my initial urge is to reject the hi-fi and deliberately go low-fi.
i think it might be the way forward.
i could have spent a lot longer in that show but we were on a culture vulture trip round town and i'd already spent too long marvelling at the plaster casts of big columns in the V&A...we had to move on.

now i love nobyishi araki's work:
i have/used to have a predilection for asian ladies (the same problem richard kern (fairly racistly) once desribed to me as 'yellow fever').
but araki's retrospective at the barbican had toomanypictures in it innit.
because there are soo many, it somehow takes away how great they all are.
there's a room there with 3000 polaroids in it, and they were all shot in just the last year.
admiteddly there's about 200 polaroids of the same (or simliar) boiled egg, but there's also about 1000 different bound up in ropes, naked girls: that's almost three a day isn't it?
sensory overload.
too much.
and now (although i know i'm not nobyishi araki) i'm wondering if putting 4457 pictures in the gallery here was a good idea.
HA!
perhaps it will become just 10 black and white images.

today...
bizarrely i photographed 'stock aitken and waterman': (the hit factory).
at pete's place just off westminster bridge.
the high security studio you need a key card for and then a fingerprint scan.
had a fairly nice time outside waiting for the interview to finish watching the beautiful light move round out of use and down into darkness.
also amused myself talking to pete about how i had been a butler in the house he had considered buying and how i remembered that he flew in by helicopter to view it.
i said he should have got it: you can't buy much for £3 million these days: it's got to be worth ten times that now.
it was 1989.
apparently rick astley's looking to make a comeback.

after the shoot, drove into islington and bought some firman's boots and a flameproof fireman's jacket.
i used to want to be a fireman.
maximum adores fire engines (and fireman sam).
despite these purchases, i am feeling quite glum today.
think it's the dark early nights and fighting the natural urge to hibernate.
i'll be sparking up the S.A.D lights tomorrow.