#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (20)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

I made it!!! I am delighted to announce that I hit my kickstarter target so now all you lovely people who ordered a print will actually get one! Can’t thank you enough for supporting the campaign and making it a success…you freed the jpegs! They will now get to roam free in the real world, well not exactly roam, they don’t have legs or anything, they’re actually going to be pretty static, on your wall hopefully, inside a frame but trust me they are going to be a lot happier than they were in their digital purgatory prison hard drives. Ok, they won’t be any happier, they’re not actually sentient beings or anything, they have no feelings but I do and I will most certainly be happier that these prints will soon exist…the only reason I did this project in the first place was that I hoped to get my work into people’s homes and that is now definitely happening so I am chuffed to bits. And I really hope you will also be chuffed with your lucky dip print if you ordered one..if you haven’t but do still want one you there is still time…about 24 hours to be precise before the deadline ends so for your last chance to get your hands on one and for the last time here is the link: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

And apologies for the incessant pluggin’ & pushin’ but as the old quote states: “Without promotion something terrible happens…nothing”. And so after 30 days of  relentless online activity across a multitude of social media platforms I have  slightly exhausted myself (and I am sure possibly you too in the process) so I am going to take the rest of the month off from posting but normal service will resume at the beginning of May. Thanks again and see you then!

bcr x

P.s Prints will be sent out in June.

 

 

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (19)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

Time is indeed running out for my MYLDN Kickstarter Print Campaign – it ends on Wed 11th April at 12:04pm, in roughly 50 hours, I am 97% funded and I have just 3 prints to sell to get me over the finish line by then…help me release these imprisoned images while you still can…and to all of you who have pledged and supported this campaign, on behalf of all the jpegs who will hopefully soon be liberated from their hard drive prisons and set free into the world, I thank you most deeply. Their freedom will be because of you..so please click on link below to emancipate the last remaining few…never leave a jpeg behind!

https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (18)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

I have just 5 days left to go and I only need to sell 10 more prints to get me to my funding goal of my kickstarter campaign. I never thought I would get this far but I am so close now to the finish line I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but I really need your help to get there.

If you would like to own a one of a kind 1 of 1 print that no-one else will ever have for only £30.00 please click on this link while there is still time and make a pledge to my campaign:

https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

These images will never be again be sold at this price and this is a one time only opportunity to have something that is both unique and affordable, a rare beast in this day and age.

 

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (17)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

“Love will tear us apart again” is probably my favourite piece of street art of all time. It features the Vision and the Scarlett Witch from the Avengers locked in an embrace as if the world might crumble around them at any second. And in some ways it did as they eventually tore down this building in Shoreditch where it once resided. Street art by its very definition is transient but in a city such as London where over the past decade, so much has been destroyed and new buildings, mostly luxury flats have been erected in their place. No city stays the same but I have watched as Old London has disappeared and New London has risen up through its rubble. This photograph somehow sums up for me the end of the old and the beginning of the new and I am very glad I took it as it was not long after that it came down, each painted brick,  with a little bit of love on each one, scattered into the debris, never to be seen again.

This photograph is one of the selected you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100, one of a kind, lucky dip prints, in 30 days, for £30 each and there is now only 6 days to go and I almost there! I’m 82% funded but there are still prints left so please click on link below if you want to get one while you still can…for the record I will never sell these prints again.

https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

I would like to thank everyone who has ordered one so far and supported this project. I am so chuffed you have all got behind it and fingers crossed I can make it to my goal in the last few days. If you are able to help me and contribute to the campaign or to share out in any way please do, just copy link above, it would be hugely appreciated as I race towards the end.

Free the jpeg!

P.s If anyone knows who did this mural I would love to know.

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (16)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

This photograph was taken on the Golborne Road and for me it encapsulates the cycle of life of a human being. The  young kid belts it down the road on his skateboard, full of life and energy, without a concern in the world  other than how fast he can go. The old man with the walking stick having a breather as he watches the boy whizz by.  He seems to remembering his own youth and how active and carefree he also once was and there is a glint of envy and remorse as youth literally passes him by. This is the bitter sweet experience of life and something universal to us all which is why we must rinse it for all its worth for one day we will all be the man sat on the ledge.

This is one of the selected prints you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100, one of a kind, lucky dip prints, in 30 days, for £30 each and there is now only 7 days to go! If you would one of these prints please sign up via link below and if you are able to share at all please do, it would be greatly appreciated as my time is running out…I’m 75% funded but I still need to get over the finish line and its all or nothing!

Click here to get on board and free the jpeg! https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (14)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

Hope you’re having a good Bank Holiday! Although you do have to ask yourself why we celebrate banks having a break when they are the ones who are basically responsible for crippling the economy, saddling us all with massive debt and creating massive inequality. Not that I think we shouldn’t have a long weekend. We should just rename the holidays. Stop calling them bank holidays and start calling them umm..People Holidays! And the fat cat CEOs of the banks should be the only ones who have to work, everyone else gets the day off. Now that would make much more sense to me…

This photograph is part of my MYLDN Kickstarter campaign and you can sign up for a print here: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (12)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

Happy Easter!

This print is included in my kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100 one of a kind prints in 30 days for £30 each. It will be a lucky dip as there is only one print of each photograph. Never to be repeated or replicated. You won’t know what you are getting in advance which might be unnerving but hopefully a small sacrifice for something unique. And really, what is more fun than a lucky dip? Please click here to view campaign: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

14 days to go….

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (11)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

This photograph is actually a lie. A total fabrication. These two guys were actually extras on a film shoot in Notting Hill and you are in fact looking at part of the street they constructed to look like the 60s. I can’t remember the name of the film but it was something like Hanky Panky or Hunky Dory or maybe even Hippy Dippy. Definitely an ‘H’ word. The film never came out as far as I am aware. Although without being able to recall the title its possible I wouldn’t have known even if it had done. I did just look up the Who gig that is featured in the poster behind them and it was from 1965 so at least we know when it was set.

There is a certain stillness to this picture, as if they are literally suspended in time. And in some ways they are. This area in the 60s was virtually a slum, the polar opposite of its current posh status. No-one who lived there then could have possibly imagined that their downmarket area would transform into this extremely wealthy location. Most of the residents of that era moved here because they couldn’t afford to go anywhere else. This photograph for me is the closest I can get to time travel, to get a glimpse of what it must have been like and also serves as a reminder us that we really have no idea what will happen in the future because they also had no idea in the past where we would end up today.  London has transformed immeasurably in the last 10 years but if you look back through history you see that there is no permanency  – everything is in flux, nothing ever stays the same. I take solace in this as it means that whatever is happening now, it will be most certainly be totally transformed in the next evolution of this ever-changing city.

Tally so far: 47 backers and am approaching two thirds of way to my kickstarter goal with just 14 days to go…please click on this link to order one and free the jpeg today! https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (10)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

This guy has been busking on the Portobello Road for as long as I can remember which admittedly isn’t that long but its definitely been years. He isn’t the  cheeriest of chaps but he is out there in rain or shine, plucking away at those thick strings with one hand and bashing the body with his other one to create stripped down rockabilly tracks for passing tourists. I’m not I have ever seen him smile and I have never seen him speak to anyone. He feels like a lonely soul and when you see him walk down the street with this large heavy cumbersome instrument that is bigger than he is, it is difficult for me not to see it as a physical embodiment on the outside of a burden he is carrying on the inside. A literal weight on his shoulders.

This photograph is one of the prints you could get in my #myldn lucky dip print project on Kickstarter at the moment – please click on this link to order one and free the jpeg today! https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (9)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

Just in case you were in any doubt this is a picture of a man doing a head stand in his bucket. His sign states:

“I am a professional head stand master, practicing for ten years. Please don’t try this at home. Make a wish in my magic wishing tin and allow me to continue my wonderful job bringing smiles and laughter to you beautiful people. love and light to all. Please like “bucket boys/bucket man on facebook.”

This photograph is one of the selected prints you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100 one of a kind prints in 30 days for £30 each. And as of today, I am exactly halfway to my ‘all or nothing’ goal with exactly half the time to go..16 days to be precise  – to order a print here is the link to the campaign: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

 

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – Video montage

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

if you can’t see this video please click on this link to view: https://youtu.be/Pu1IVaOzMx8

The photographs featured in this video are some of the selected prints you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100, one of a kind, one off, 1 of 1 prints which are never to be repeated or replicated. As I am only printing 1 of each shot you will not be able to choose your print but you will be the only person in the world to ever own it – please click through on this link to view the campaign and  join the lucky dip: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw – your support is very much appreciated. And thank you to everyone who has pledged so far. Muchos Muchos x

and thanks so much to Bolis Pulpul for the use of his amazing track “Teknow”, available on the Deewee label.

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (8)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

This was another one of those moments when I couldn’t quite believe my luck in spotting this random and poignant moment. The sofa had been there for about a day and had obviously been thrown out by someone and had seen other people sit on it but when I saw this woman sat there, deep in thought, looking concerned and somewhat troubled it really struck me. It was at a time when there was a relentless amount of anti-muslim headlines in the press and the mainstream media who were stoking up as much resentment and hatred as they could and I felt somehow this image encapsulated that experience in some ways. She looked so isolated and out of place on that purple sofa it felt like it showed how alienating it must feel to be from a different culture and attempting to integrate whilst looking so different and being treated with suspicion. The press only ever report the immigrant situation from the point of view of the establishment and the indigenous population rather than what it must feel like to be at the receiving end of an unwelcoming atmosphere. Imagine going to a party and everyone looks at you weird and gives you the cold shoulder. Like that but every day.

This photograph is one of the selected prints you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100, one of a kind, one off, 1 of 1 prints which are never to be repeated or replicated. As I am only printing 1 of each shot you will not be able to choose your print but you will be the only person in the world to ever own it – please click through on this link to view the campaign and  join the lucky dip and to share if at all possible: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw – your support is very much appreciated. And thank you to everyone who has pledged so far. Muchos Muchos x

To see all the prints that are part of the lucky dip please click on this link: http://wp.me/P2TRkx-3ym

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (7)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

Not a single pixel in this digital photograph has ever be seen anywhere other than on a screen. It has been at the mercy of instant swiping since it was released into the ether and has only ever known fleeting encounters with its online consumers. There one second, gone the next. Don’t these pixels deserve a more permanent existence? To exist in the real world as we do? You could release this picture from its digital hard drive dungeon by pledging to my campaign  and giving it a place it could call home.

Free the jpeg today by clicking on this link: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw

This is just one of the 100 photographs you could receive in the lucky dip. You don’t get to choose as there is only one of each print and when you receive it you will be the only person in the world to ever own it. I will never re-print the photograph so it will be like owning a painting, a true one off. These images will only ever be offered in this way at this price on this kickstarter campaign as a one time only deal never to be repeated.

If you have enjoyed being a follower of the #MYLDN series over the years and were able to help contribute to this campaign I would be hugely grateful. The way kickstarter works is that I need to sell all of them to hit my target or I don’t sell any. Sadly I do not have an ad spend to help promote this so if you are able to share this campaign in any way it would be hugely appreciated.

tally so far: 35 prints sold, 65 to go, 22 days left.

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (6)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

I have an ongoing series called “dead in the mincers” (cockney rhyming slang for looking someone straight in the eye – as in ‘mince pies’ -eyes) and this is a perfect example. It looks like I’ve been caught red handed capturing the moment and the menace in her eyes would certainly indicate as much. However sometimes people look straight at me but don’t know for sure if I am taking a shot or not as I literally ‘shoot from the hip’. I use the touchscreen on my Olympus OMD as find it hides my photo taking action much better than pulling the camera up to my face and pressing a button. It also means I never look directly at my subjects and in this instant, if I had, I think I would have been rooted to the spot in fear.

I had just seen this trans person, who was now eyeballing me with a look to kill, attack some woman on Soho square by repeatedly hitting her with a handbag. It was over in a flash and she stormed off with her mate after said battering and just by sheer fluke  I ran straight into them being interrogated by the police shortly after. She was actually claiming she had been hit rather than the other way round.  I did think about offering up my alternative viewpoint of the event in question but thought better of it as didn’t really want to be on the receiving end of her wrath or her handbag.  Did I allow justice to fail to protect myself from violent repercussion – yes, absolutely.

There used to be a lot of characters like this around Soho but they have all but disappeared. Relics of a former era now gone forever. I miss them. They brought a vitality to the area that is now sadly lacking. The question I have to ask is when the area got cleaned up and boutiqued to oblivion where did they all go? Where are they now? Hanging out in the suburbs? Mooching about in Margate? It seems unlikely. I really would like to know. Same goes for all the characterful and colourful residents of Old London who got moved on by excessive rents…where the fuck did you all go?

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (5)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

This was taken on Portobello Road, a road which I have walked down almost every day for at least the last decade or so. And if you are going to walk down the same road over and over it might as well be Portobello as there is nearly always something or someone going on that will be worth documenting. In this case, the someone was the woman in this picture, who for reasons unknown, stepped out in front of this car holding up an open book to her chest and then refused to move. The driver also seemed unaware of the cause of this human blockade but his attempted solution was to scream at her and beep his horn repeatedly which failed to work. She just stood there, determined and resilient, seemingly oblivious to everything around her, including the irate driver and the small traffic jam behind him she was causing.

I have  often wondered what the book was. My first choice would be a bible or some religious text as it is often only the word of God that can inspire such commitment and fortitude. However, it could have been Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows for all I know. This situation went on for a while and I ended up leaving them to it so I don’t actually know how the situation resolved or what was ultimately behind it but I was grateful to have captured such a truly bizarre occurrence. London is full of these fleeting moments of madness as lives collide.  That’s what makes it such an interesting place to live.   You just need to keep your eyes peeled. And I try to keep my eyes peel free at all times…

This photograph is one of the selected prints you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100, one of a kind, one off, 1 of 1 prints which are never to be repeated or replicated. As I am only printing 1 of each shot you will not be able to choose your print but you will be the only person in the world to ever own it – please click through on this link to view the campaign and  join the lucky dip: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw – your support is very much appreciated. And thank you to everyone who has pledged so far. Muchos Muchos x

tally so far: 31 prints sold, 69 to go, 23 days left.

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (4)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

Sometimes the planets align to produce a moment of magnificent random chaos that just somehow becomes ordered, designed, destined always to have been. The  instant I captured in this photograph I think delivers this to beautifully. I love how the policeman is looking at me, his expression kind of says it all. What I think is great that buried deep in his furrowed brow is the acknowledgement of how ridiculous this situation is and he feels embarrassed and a bit guilty that he has been caught in this predicament. Its not good cop vs bad cop, its real cop vs fake cop and its difficult to tell who’s winning. This is what they call in photography a gift from the gods and all you can do is get it in the bag and declare your gratitude to the universe.

This photograph is one of the selected prints you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100, one of a kind, one off, 1 of 1 prints which are never to be repeated or replicated. As I am only printing 1 of each shot you will not be able to choose your print but you will be the only person in the world to ever own it – please click through on this link to view the campaign and  join the lucky dip: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw – your support is very much appreciated. And thank you to everyone who has pledged so far. Muchos Muchos x

tally so far: 19 prints sold, 81 to go, 26 days left.

 

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (3)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

This was one of those instants when you realise as a photographer that if you really want to capture unique magical moments amidst the humdrum of daily life you must have your camera with you and readily accessible at all times. I don’t think at any point on any journey I have ever travelled on the London Underground I have ever seen anyone sit on the escalators. Not once except on this single occasion. And she sat there with such poise and elegance and seemed so relaxed and at ease in a situation that definitely didn’t demand it, it was truly mesmeric. To this day I feel very lucky to have captured this fleeting moment and also feel very lucky that I was able to do it without disturbing her. She had no idea I was even there, lost so deeply in her own thoughts which were clearly transporting her far and away beyond the transport system she was within.

This photograph is one of the selected prints you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100, one of a kind, one off, never to be repeated or replicated, 1 of 1 prints. As I am only printing 1 of each shot you will not be able to choose your print but you will be the only person in the world to ever own it – please click through on this link to view the campaign and  join the lucky dip: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw – your support is very much appreciated.

tally so far: 15 prints sold, 85 to go, 27 days left.

#freethejpeg

 

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print (2)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

People who have seen this photograph have often asked me what is he doing and in all honesty I have no idea. He could be gardening, praying, have his head stuck in a fence, spying on someone in the basement. In some ways it is not knowing which gives the photograph its meaning as it is what we project on to it that makes us relate to it. The relationship between the viewer and the image is everything, more even than the relationship between the photographer and the image because it is the connection of the consumer which makes it personal and most impactful. This is what gives it greater resonance. So its really not for me to say. You decide. It becomes your picture…which leads me conveniently on to..

This photograph is one of the selected prints you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100 one of a kind one off 1 of 1 prints. As I am only printing 1 of each shot you will not be able to choose your print but you will be the only person in the world to ever own it – please click through on this link to view the campaign and  join the lucky dip: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw – your support is very much appreciated.

tally so far: 12 prints sold, 88 to go, 28 days left.

#freethejpeg

#MYLDN KCKSTRTR Campaign – featured print 1

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

This photograph was #MYLDN (1) – the first picture I ever posted in this blog. I always loved her expression. I think she could see me taking a photograph from over the road and it puzzled her as to why. She even looked a bit irked by it. Somehow this ramshackle parking space blocking construct annoyed her. And then you have this slightly sinister and mysterious figure in black heading into the house but he looks frozen, as if waiting to be beckoned in to the dark house. Three individual and random factors (actually 4 if you include me) unwittingly conspiring to make a scene. Order out of chaos. It are these seemingly unrelated connections between objects and people that I gravitate to on the streets of London. It shows how, whether we like it or not, we are all intertwined.

This photograph is one of the selected prints you can order via this kickstarter campaign where I am trying to sell 100 one of a kind one off 1 of 1 prints in just under 30 days. As I am only printing 1 of each shot you will not be able to choose your print but you will be the only person in the world to ever own it – please click through on this link to join the lucky dip: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw – your support is very much appreciated.

tally so far: 7 backers, 93 to go, 29 days left.

#freethejpeg

#MYLDN KICKSTARTER LAUNCH (FREE THE JPEG)

Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london

Dear Subscribers,

Today I am launching a kickstarter project to sell 100 unique, one off, one of a kind, never to be replicated 1 of 1 prints. Please click on link below to see the video and read about the campaign and to buy a print if you would like one. The print has a lucky dip selection as there is only one of each photograph in the series but what’s more fun than a lucky dip? If you buy one you will be the only person in the world to own it. Ever. You can also view the images selected in the link below.

Many of you have been following my blog since the beginning and massively appreciate all your support to date and would be chuffed if you wish to support this project too.

(this link will take you through to the kickstarter project: https://tinyurl.com/ya43j8bw)

Thank you

Babycakes Romero