#MYLDN – Page 67 – Babycakes Romero

15/09/201514/09/2015

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

14/09/201514/09/2015

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

11/09/201511/09/2015

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

To see the full Notting Hill Carnival gallery please click here

There were two things at this year’s Carnival that have significantly increased on previous years and that is the mass indulgence of balloons (nitrous oxide) and selfies. It seemed everywhere you looked someone was doing a balloon or a selfie and on some occasions, as in the instance above, both at the same time. I was going to name them ‘belfies’ but that’s already been taken (bottom shots apparently) so I think I will have to go with “ballofies”. (yes I am slightly trying to make #ballofies happen)

It is quite staggering how much both activities have increased in the last year alone but especially selfies. As I looked back through the crowd shots I had taken there was barely a single picture where someone wasn’t taking a selfie of themselves or their group, often repeatedly. I then looked back at the crowd shots from just last year’s Carnival and it was markedly less which just shows how its presence in our lives is spreading.

There was a time, not that long ago, when it would have been considered really naff, narcissistic and very uncool to stand there and take multiple shots of yourself. Why it is no longer considered so I really do not know. Its out of hand. Its happening way way too much. It needs to stop.

As for the balloons. their use is also slightly out of hand. Its only being done because its legal and even though its mostly harmless it can actually kill you as it works by pushing all the oxygen out of your lungs which apparently you need to breathe which apparently is quite useful for staying alive. This means it is technically more dangerous than most of the illegal recreational drugs the youth are being “protected” from.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Well, actually the same news. BBC future just published an article yesterday about people’s obsession with taking their own picture and commissioned several of my photographs to accompany it. Here it is if you want to see: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150901-are-you-taking-too-many-pictures

10/09/201510/09/2015

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

09/09/2015

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

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08/09/201502/09/2015

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

07/09/201502/09/2015

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

04/09/201501/09/2015

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

I can’t help but feel that this entire situation might be dealt with differently if the migrants who are in Calais were a sea of white faces from a European country instead. Would they have been treated the same? It seems doubtful.

I would also question the use of the word ‘migrant’ and its implications. The term would suggest that they are defined by their transitory nature and that they are of a ‘type’. The only thing they have in common is that they are displaced from their country of origin through events beyond their control.

The dictionary defines migrant as “a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions.”

This sounds like they have a choice. They don’t. If they’d had a choice they would have stayed where they were. Would you leave your home with nothing unless you absolutely had to? They only move from one place to another because no-one wants them. They are not travelling for fun. They’re not inter-railing around Europe. They are looking for a home.

I think by calling them ‘migrants’ it allows us to think of them as permanently in motion and therefore it is easier to move them on. They can just ‘migrate’ somewhere else. The terminology allows us to absolve ourselves. But this situation will not go away. It will not ‘migrate’. It will just keep coming back. It will need to be considered with genuine understanding and compassion to find the correct solution. The ‘crisis’ is our lack of empathy. They are not migrants. They are people.

03/09/201501/09/2015

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

David Cameron described the migrants as a “swarm”. This is designed intentionally to dehumanise them. So that their plight does not stir our emotions. But they are not one big problem. They are individuals, each one with their own personal story of human misery. They are not faceless multiples to be dealt with en masse. Each one has a different tale that led them to this horrific situation. Only by seeing each and every one of them as unique will we find the humanity that is necessary to deal with this ‘problem’.

And for the record, it is not our problem. It is theirs. They are the ones without a home, without a country, without anything other than what they could carry with them. They are the ones who left behind loved ones. They are the ones that no-one wants. They are the ones with the problem. The crisis is theirs. Not ours.

02/09/201501/09/2015

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

A barrel bomb is an improvised unguided bomb made from a large barrel-shaped metal container that has been filled with high explosives, with possibly shrapnel, oil or chemicals, and then dropped from a helicopter or airplane. It is estimated that, as of mid-March 2014, between 5,000 to 6,000 barrel bombs have been dropped during the Syrian conflict and 99% of casualities have been civilian. Barrel bomb attacks throughout Syria have killed more than 20,000 people since the conflict began.

If reading the stats doesn’t affect you imagine they were being dropped on your city at this rate with such a death toll…would you stick around?

01/09/201501/09/2015

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

MYLDN is back! The big story in the U.K whilst I’ve been gone is the Migrant Crisis in Calais…

Almost 60 million people around the world have been driven from their homes by war or persecution according to the Times. About 14 million people were displaced last year alone. 14 million is roughly the population of Greater London. Imagine every human being currently located in this city wandering around the Earth looking for a new place to live. Imagine you were one of them…

31/07/201528/08/2015

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

Happy Birthday Agent K!! xx

and so ends this week’s photos, a random collection or random findings, weird bizarre shit you stumble upon quite by chance. London, as is life, is full of them and its important to keep your eyes peeled or you just might miss them.

This is the last post I will be doing for a while as am doing my usual European thing and taking August off…because life is definitely for living and not just documenting.

Enjoy the rest of your summer and see you in September!

bcr x

30/07/201529/07/2015

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

In memory of Ben Hopkins x

28/07/2015

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

27/07/201527/07/2015

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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london – well,ish. I was actually in Cambridgeshire, in a field, knee deep in mud.

bit late today, sorry, I was at the Secret Garden Party being chased by a giant..umm..rabbit thing.

24/07/201524/07/2015

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

To see the full Despacio gallery please click here.

Despacio returns!!

(For those who don’t know: Despacio is a sound system created & curated by James Murphy (LCD sound system) & 2manydjs (Soulwax). It is the best in the world

On the first day it began at Lovebox I was hesitant about going in and wondered if maybe it was finally losing its magnetic hold on me but as soon as I hit the dancefloor I remembered why I had been avoiding it..once I am there I do not want to leave. Everything else can wait. Some of my happiest moments on earth have been at Despacio and that is not an exaggeration of any sorts. It is a complete and fulfilling experience which generates happiness and well-being amongst those fortunate enough to witness it. It is a Love Machine. It was built with love and it produces love. We live in dark times. The world needs Despacio. It is a beacon of hope for how humanity can be: together as one, in harmony with each other, connected by the music, bonded by emotion. Sound over the top? I’m sure, but what can I say? That’s how it makes you feel.

When you are in Despacio you dance with strangers. You form a circle. You muck about, have a dance off, embrace. When you make eye contact you do not look away, you smile, from ear to ear, you know how each other is feeling. It makes you include one another. It makes you be a good human being. It makes you appreciate the beauty of existence. You don’t want it to end. Life makes sense inside Despacio. And the music is phenomenal. The 6hour set driven by the inspired vinyl selections of 2manydjs and james murphy takes you on the most incredible journey, building and building to the ultimate crescendo. And the sound will blow you away. It is unlike anything else that exists anywhere else on the planet. And the only way you can experience this is to see it and hear it in person.

Its coming to the Roundhouse in September. Tickets went on sale this morning, if you can get one, get one. http://gigst.rs/despacio

Here is a video I shot over the weekend:

23/07/2015

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

This was lovebox at victoria park on the Saturday..

this was citadel at victoria park on the sunday

Lovebox used to run for the whole weekend but for some reason this year they did 2 days of lovebox and then the 3rd day was called Citadel.

On the friday & saturday Lovebox was a bit of a wild affair. the largely 18-21 inner city demographic seemed hell bent on getting properly wasted from the off. And they did. They demonstrated the wild spirit of youth and even though it got a bit messy it gave me hope for London. No matter how expensive and exclusive it becomes they will never be able to crush the diversity and the energy that fuels this city.

To see the full lovebox gallery please click here

On the Sunday it turned into a completely different festival. same location. same promoters. same stages and food trucks but was now called Citadel and was a totally different line-up and as a result a totally different crowd. Lovebox had the likes of Snoop Dogg, Rudimental and Cypress Hill and consequently generated an urban racially mixed largely working class crowd whilst at Citadel the singer songwriter Ben Howard was headlining and consequently attracted a very white middle class relatively sedate audience. I was there all three days (because of Despacio – see tomorrow’s post) and it was so weird coming into the same location which looked exactly the same but the people couldn’t have been more different from the previous two days. The queues for the smoothies was now longer than the queues for the bar. There was more eating going on than drinking. It was a very family atmosphere. Children were running around and getting their face painted. And as you can see above they were playing croquet for god’s sake. If they had had mallets and Lovebox there would probably have been bloodshed.

What was fascinating was how a change in music could utterly change the demographic of the audience. It really felt like a class divide and made me realise how the art we consume and the culture we come from are interlinked and intertwined, to such a degree we aren’t even aware of it.

It feels music festivals are going the way of Citadel. Calmer, more family friendly, more food orientated and it feels less and less about the music….and in all honesty I am not very happy about it. Festivals should only be about music and getting loaded and having a wild time. That is what they are there for. They are there so we can all let off a bit of steam so we can deal with the rest of the shite. The festival Grinch has spoken.

22/07/201522/07/2015

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

we live in a world of short shorts. Even the guys are doing it now. Lovebox was quite a display of minimalist material ensembles from both the geezers and the birds. A case of ‘if in doubt, make sure its out’. I’m sure that some morally righteous people will be saying that the youth are denigrating themselves and should show more decorum and less flesh but the peacock parade is the catalyst for how the human race procreates. It has always been this way. Its not fashion and its not a degradation in values. Its just biology. Business as usual. If there was no mating rituals most species would not be on Earth.

21/07/2015

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

20/07/2015

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

2pm, saturday afternoon. The tube is full of youths on their way to The Lovebox festival in Victoria Park. They passed round super strength alcohol disguised in soft drink bottles and took turns at nitrous oxide balloons. If you go to a festival you see a lot of balloon action these days. This symbol of childhood innocence has been re-appropriated by young party heads, mainly because its still technically legal, although there is call to ban it. Although no-one can really say why. It is a short intense high that makes you light headed and euphoric. Its difficult to see quite why that is a problem. The tabloids are calling it ‘hippy crack’ which makes it sound like a demonic dangerous drug from hell which is undoubtedly the intention.