Category: #MYLDN

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They travel in pairs. You will always find them mid photo shoot against an aesthetically pleasing background. They will take endless shots to get the perfect one. They will shoot and review, shoot and review and then swap and do it all again. And they seem to be everywhere you turn. They are the #LookatMe Girls.

They help each other to build each other’s feeds, generating content and finding endless ways to repackage the same person to their followers over and over again. Frienships are now undoubtedly being formed on abilities to frame and light a shot and to be able to make your bezzie mate look as amazeballs as you possibly can. Who cares if you listen to what I am saying…can you handle a SLR and bring out my cheek bones is the question?

The endless Instagram feed has been chock full of  girls posing to camera and trying to make themselves look good for a long time but it feels like it has gone to a whole new level. The selfie in the bathroom is no longer enough. You need a proper photo shoot that is well lit with great composition and as professional looking as possible. You don’t want to look like you tried too hard but they you must try your hardest to be noticed in the process. The competition is fierce. You are up against a lot of other females doing exactly the same thing. And now there is the potential for a lucrative career as an Instagram ‘influencer’ paid to endorse products, it is no longer just driven by narcissism and the psychological need for little orange hearts. It has become a business. The business of #lookatme.

And without raising the delicate issue of gender in this day and age this is more noticeably and significantly being done by XXs rather than XYs. Even though guys are also taking pictures of themselves and posting them, when you are out and about it is girls you see doing this wherever you are. I am sure I am not the only one who has noticed this. Everytime I’m on a night out I see this happening. It is starting to feel like they are going out just so they can photograph each other rather than just taking a picture because they are out.

And, for me,  it does somehow feel in direct opposition to the female empowerment movement currently taking place and seems to be at odds with the new message they are trying to get across. The new declaration of the feminist movement around the world is that you are more than your looks and your ability to attract the opposite sex. But even with everything that has happened in the last year or so with #metoo, there still seems to be an opposing force, driven by the relentless amount of #lookatme uploads which continues to perpetrate female stereotypes that restrict them to being objects of attraction. And this is being done by the girls themselves. They are not being coerced into doing this by men. This is their own doing. Their own desire. And obviously not all females are doing this or wish to be viewed in that way but based on the ever-flowing digital feed it is a considerable percentage.

Am I making a judgement? More an observation. Is there a problem with this happening? Not necessarily, they can do what they like but it doesn’t seem to sit with this new feminist stance. It could be peer pressure. They feel the need to do it because their friends are doing it and they don’t want to be left out of the dopamine inducing experience but if that is the case, then there is even more reason to flag it up. The opposing argument is that women are now using their looks for their own purposes and on their own terms. They could claim that the likes of Kylie Jenner have gained wealth and power by exploiting her visual appeal for her own ends but doesn’t female empowerment comes from putting a value on yourself beyond simply how attractive you are? And as there is so much documented evidence to show that so many girls are being made to feel miserable from having to compete with these images of female “perfection” it creates a devaluing and detrimental effect to those with low self-esteem. This is resulting in depression and self-harm and so it might be the time to consider rejecting this need to present yourself for public approval and to seek a self-wroth through the eyes of others and instead truly empower yourself by not posting pictures or caring what you look like or what others think of you.

I should point out at this stage, in case anyone was unaware, that I am a man and as a result am maybe unqualified to make a call on the exact nature of this phenomena. But regardless of my chromosomal make-up it is happening and it should be up for discussion. I would like to maybe have a selfie amnesty. For one day of the year, no-one, of any gender identity, can post a picture of themselves. We could call it #notme day and just see how that goes. Who’s in?

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When the dust had settled after this year’s carnival, all that remained was a fuck load of graffiti. They had basically tagged the shit out of the entire area. Almost no wall in the immediate vicinity seemed to have escaped. They scrawled and sprayed all over shops, properties, walls, phone boxes, even trees! You name it, they tagged it. Its basically like being invited over to someone’s house for a party then taking a dump on their carpet. My issue is not with tagging itself, although, unlike  a lot of graffiti and street art, it has no aesthetic merit to speak of and is the human equivalent of dogs pissing up against walls. (will quit with the bodily function analogies) It’s just another form of territory marking. The only difference is you permanently deface things in the process. Actually by the sounds of it, it would appear I do have a problem with tagging..

However my main problem with tagging at the Carnival is that the local council will have to spend a ton of money  cleaning it up and then they will use it as an excuse to say that its too costly and there is too much property damage and that will give them a reason to stop it. And we do not want to give them any excuse to do that so the main aim is to avoid that at all costs. So if you are coming to Carnival next year, just  come and enjoy yourself and don’t fuck the place up in the process. Use the boards that are erected everywhere to leave your tag if you need to, just leave people’s homes and businesses out of it.

There is this notion that the area is just full of posh rich folk which is only true of a percentage of the residents. There is a whole community that live in W.11 that do not fit into that category at all and the real Notting Hill story is fuck all like the one with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in it. And yes, tourists still come to the blue door, 2o friggin years later, to get their picture taken in front of it. But that is not a true and accurate representation of the neighbourhood.

The tagging does feel like a bit of a ‘fuck you’ to the wealthy residents and an angry protest at the massive inequality present within this city which is valid but it is a misguided one for a lot of the places that get mangled in the process. And you have been invited to this area to have a party and a good time, so its a little disrespectful to than mash the place up.

I spent two days directly after carnival photographing every bit of graffiti that had been done over the weekend and ended up with nearly 300 shots all of which I have featured into this short 1 minute movie which will be on my Instagram page later on today (@babycakesromero) and here it is if you are not part of the digital picture party that never ends…

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmkQKIbjLfs&frags=pl%2Cwn

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JUMP UP! Exhibition celebrating the history of Carnival – launch tmrrow night!

Am delighted to have some of my Carnival work featured in this exhibition at The Muse Gallery on Portobello Rd showing the history of  the biggest street party in Europe through photography. Launch night is Thursday 20th Sept (tomorrow -sorry for short notice, no idea where the time has gone) from 6-9pm if anyone is around and fancies it…there will be drinks & tunes and a talk by local legend Lee Harris.   Its on till 30th if you can’t make tomorrow..

If you need more convincing it also got a nice little write up in this week’s Time Out with one of me pics too..:)

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Doom ahead..please do not read if you want your Friday sunny side up…

All the photos this week were taken during the heatwave. I chose not to write about climate change during the endless sunshine as it seemed such a downer to mention whilst we were having such a glorious summer and I enjoyed it just like everyone else. After reading the Great Disruption by Paul Gilding (which laid out exactly how the environment was going to collapse) I was initially very depressed but ultimately came to the conclusion that there is no point wasting a perfectly good present for a perfectly hideous future. And yet, the days of being able to enjoy unusually warm weather without knowing that it actually signfies something very very bad as oppose to something good are over. A hot sunny day is no longer something positive.

At least global warming is at least now being mentioned in news items about the weather. Its omission has been eerily absent until this year when it just could no longer be ignored. Each subsequent month and year becomes the hottest on record and yet it has taken decades of ignoring the cries of climate scientists for the mainstream media to confirm the reasons for these alarming trends in extreme weather. We have had a massive increase in fires, floods, hurricanes and heatwaves but it is only very recently has it finally become  acknowledged that it is a result of man made activity and an increase in co2 in the atmosphere. Well not if you’re Trump, obvs, but who really gives a fuck what he thinks..

The weirdest thing for me is that the news went from not mentioning it at all to going straight to discussing how we will have to cope with a much hotter planet with volatile conditions. What happened to the solution stage? We seem to have skipped it. The planet seems to have gone from denial to defeatism in one fell swoop. Why are the leaders of this planet not putting everything aside to deal with this when it is has been accepted its happening? Why are we wasting time with bullshit like Brexit and all the other bollocks people are banging on about when there is something looming that threatens to destablize everything on Earth? Why are countries not even attempting to reach the modest targets from the Paris Climate Summit which are not even close to being enough in the first place? George Monbiot wrote in his book ‘Heat’ in his book 2006 that we needed to reduce emissions by 90% to have a hope in hell and he was calling for immediate action and that was over a decade ago. Why can’t we get our heads around the fact that this is not something that possibly might happen but something that is very real and happening right now?

The problem with human brains is  we cannot look ahead and we are hardwired to ignore really bad news. We cannot get our heads around it and it doesn’t matter how much information we are given we choose to block it out because we cannot compute it. As does everyone around us including all those who have the power and the ability to do something about it.

I often wonder what future generations will think of us as they deal with the shitstorm we allowed to happen? They will cry: what the fuck were you doing? why didn’t you do anything? And so to future generations I would like to say…

Umm, well, firstly, sorry. I know conditions might no longer be very pleasant but would like you to know that we did try to stop it. We protested a bit but no-one really listened, we recycled our waste but not enough so it would really make a difference..umm, we would have done more but they invented the internet and smartphones and we all got kind of busy with that, we did sign some petitions, and stopped using plastic straws, sometimes, and plastic bags, but our governments didn’t really do anything because it was a topic no-one wanted to hear about and the fossil fuel companies got in the way of progress and we couldn’t do anything to stop them and so we, umm, kinda gave up a bit cos nothing was happening and so just to say soz really, we, umm, did everything we could, sort of. I mean, not really but we were really really unhappy about it, that’s for sure but then Netflix came along, and there were just so much good telly to watch, and we just couldn’t face it, and so we got wasted a lot, and that helped, but not really and then Trump came along and we all got distracted with that circus..and well, a lot of people were saying it wasn’t really happening so umm, we thought maybe it wasn’t but turns out it was so hopefully its not too too bad for you and hopefully, eventually, evolution will step in and make the species on Earth more resilient to the new climate, and well, just, good luck, I guess…and yeah, sorry again…

That should do it right?

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Wot I did in my summer holidays (Pt 5)

Notting Hill Carnival 2018 Day 2

It got chocka on the street real quick as it seemed that most of the people who stayed away on Sunday came on the Monday to make up for it. People were dancing from midday onwards and soon the party was jumping.

The street got so full at one point they had to block off the road. They had never done this before but it was pretty rammed so maybe it wasn’t such a terrible idea. Ultimately though, it created more problems than it solved as it generated a lot of tension between the police and the crowd that couldn’t get onto the street. Normally it just naturally dissapates as those that can’t handle it just leave. This has always worked in the past and so this interference in the natural flow of carnival just served to piss a lot of people off who in return were gave grief to the constables who would not let them through…

The police seem to be interfering in general more than they had in recent years which is strange to say the least as they worked out from previous experience that the more they muscled in the more more trouble it caused so why would they revert to a policy they know doesn’t work? The Carnival is a massive massive beast. You can’t control it, you just have to let it do its thing. You have to flow with it, not against it. It is always fine if you just leave it alone, but the cynic in me thinks they don’t want to leave it alone.

They want to stop it. They would rather it didn’t exist as its just a headache for them but they know they can’t just end it just like that so maybe they think if they show its a problem they can maybe persuade the authorities not to continue with it. They could never just stop it. There would be an outcry. But they can maybe slowly snuff it out. They already make it as hard as possible for people to get in and out, with what seems like a lot of unecesssary  herding, but it feels like this is deliberate to deter as many people as possible. They are also making it harder for the sound systems to get permits and licenses and one casualty of this year was Gaza’s Rockin Blues which was not there this year, the first time in 42 years.  They appear to be pricing people out of the market and this is how they will strip it down and shrink it. It is huge. Maybe it does need to be reduxed a bit but sadly it will be money that will dictate who stays and who goes which means that a lot of people, especially the local community who are such an integral part of it, might fall by the wayside.

99.9% of the crowd who attend carnival (apparently a million and a half people) are just there to have a good time and they have definitely come to the right place as the event excels at this. There is a tiny tiny minority who might be there for anti-social reasons but it is a minuscule fraction of the people present and this element exists at all times, in every society, bar none. It cannot be entirely eradicated. We are stuck with it but we don’t have to let it rule us. Over the course of the entire day on the Monday three people kicked off on the street and attempted to start a fight of some description. But they were all shut down by the security and peer pressure every time. They were contained, the music was stopped and each one was ejected from the proceedings. The crowd booed them. No-one was interested. No-one got involved. It was very professionally dealt with and that was that. Job Done. No police were involved. It was solved without them.

What I took from this is how easy it is for just one single person to derail everything, to harmony into discord and peace into violence. It is astounding when you watch so much joy stop in an instant just because one individual has a cobb on or can’t take their booze or whatever. I was however massively heartened to see how the majority of people just have no interest in violence in any shape or form. Most of us, nearly all of us, just want to hang out and have a good time. And we don’t care who you are as long as you want the same. And we refuse to let those few who do want to stir things up dictate how our lives are run. The party is going to continue, its just going to continue without you.

All in all it was another brilliant carnival and it is just such a massive celebration of life, pumped full of joy and is just incredibly uplifting and exciting. Dancing in the street in the middle of the day on a monday..when do you ever do that? Never. Which is why carnival must always exist. We need it. Human societies have always had annual events when everyone got wasted, partied for days and then went back to their lives, only to do it all again the following year. Maybe it was for harvest, or to worship the sun god or to celebrate whatever but it has been around since the beginning and it is integral to a happy existence. Every now and then you need to blow off some steam and so you might as well do it dancing your socks off at a sound system plonked down in the middle of the street.

Lto see the full gallery please click on this link: https://babycakesromero.com/notting-hill-carnival-2018/

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Wot I did in my summer holidays (Pt 4)

Notting Hill Carnival 2018 – Day 1

I woke up at Midday (don’t judge) to see heavy duty rain pounding down on guys in flimsy waterproof(ish) jackets trying to put up the remainder of the disya jeneration sound system. On the street were a mere handful of very brave carnival attendees bracing the horrendous weather. It looked like it was going to be a washout. But ultimately you cannot crush the carnival spirit. It is more powerful than anything the skies can throw at it…

It stayed that way for hours and as a result it was probably the quietest carnival I have ever seen. The weather might have knocked out as many as quarter of a million people who stayed away as a result. You couldn’t blame em. It was grim but carnival was never for the feint-hearted. It is a magnificent experience but its a big beast and you have to be willing to get stuck in. Rain or shine. From the vibe on the street it was clear that this lot were not going to be put off by a bit of rain.

I did feel sorry for everyone who puts so much effort into putting it on and all the stall holders who are trying to make some money from the event, which is what the carnival was invented for in the first place. To give the local community an opportunity to earn some cash. After such a long hot summer it seemed a bit cruel but fuck all you can do about it. And soon enough, it didn’t matter. People were getting seriously stuck in to their daytime dance off. Normally the street is mainly used for walking along and here it was, as if my magic, transformed into a full-on street rave with a killer sound system with giant speaker stacks at either end of he road and around 2000 people jammed inbetween them all rockin out like their lives depended on it.

And just like in previous wet years the ones that didn’t shy away were the proper party people who aren’t staying away unless there is force 10 hurricane and even then they might still come along, just in heavier boots so they could still dance without getting whisked up in the air.

The  rain did eventually subside and the latter part of the afternoon was dry and all those bold enough to come in the first place were amply rewarded by another spectacular block party  from the Disya gang and Boiler Room.

The atmosphere was brilliant and nothing but good vibes all day. It was pretty full on as usual  and everyone went for it big time despite it technically being a warm up day. You always get to the end of sunday and you suddenly realise, oh shit, this is just Part 1, we gotta do all this again tomorrow! Having just got back from Lost village, this marathon race weekend was just hotting up…

Day 2 tomorrow…

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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

I’ll be saying cheerio for a while as am taking my usual month off during August in line with European tradition…yes, we are still technically in the Union, well, just about. Hope you have a great rest of summer and see you in September!

And to you Agent K, hope you have a magnifico birthday..it’s a beautiful day..I’ll give you that! xx