Photo Essay: The surroundings of the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace

There’s this fascinating touristy event happening in London called as the Changing of the Guard. The Queen’s house is the Buckingham Palace and she needs a fair few soldiers to guard her. But a soldier cannot live by guarding alone, so you need to rotate them regularly. Hence Changing of the Guard. You can click on the link to see good photographs and a bit of a background to this fascinating exercise, but i wanted to see people taking in this event. So I took some photos and down to the Serpentine. Mainly trying to figure out what the hell does “making a difference” mean in terms of a photography competition which the firm is running. Here’s the full slideshow.

Chasing the ladies

It's official. I am a technology retard.

You would not believe the amount of time it has taken me to simply upload a couple of pictures to this flaming blog and comment on them...Facebook it ain't.

Let's start with chasing little old ladies. Doesn't everyone?

I was hiding behind trees and all sorts trying to get just one decent shot of these two together. And this isn't it.

Loving editing my photos afterwards by the way. So what if you don't believe the grass was actually this green (clearly, it wasn't)...Changing the hue is crap whenever you have a face in the frame because everyone goes bright pink, but when their backs are turned, I say it is fair game. Take that, purists!

The next fella, well, all I can say is he was HUGE. My photo doesn't really do him justice (no pun intended). In colour, he's wearing the standard-issue neon yellow jacket which was clashing with Buckingham Palace in the background and the gold of the gates - what do you think of the pic in B&W?




And then we have annoying, albeit cute, children hailing bread down upon unsuspecting ducks and pigeons. Not so much "Making a difference" (as was the photography theme of the day) rather "Causing an avian hemorrhage".

Calm now you may say, but poised for attack...

And a fat duck. Not from Bray.

Highlight of the day was the Baileys the waiter put in my hot chocolate at Henry's near Green Park. Awesome. Still more work to do on better photos. I keep showing up to our gatherings so watch this space for improvements.

Photo Essay: Patisserie Valerie: A Place where the Gods enjoy pastries

Patisserie Valerie is a wonderful pastry shop and cafe in London. It makes the most amazing pastries and cakes. Great weddings have great wedding cakes from here.

Even the statue on top of the building looks like its been made out of chocolate!

We went in there twice and both times, the queue to get a table was soooooo long. So took some pics and i am still drooling at them. Here is the full slide show. Here are some of the nice pics of this Mecca of effervescent desserts.

Watch and drool…

Photo: Champagne

I know this is slightly blurred and out of focus but figured that the juxtaposition of slight blur and 3 bottles of magnum champagne was appropriate :)

The Godfather making an offer I cannot refuse

Photos of Tower Bridge

This set of photo’s belong to the old favourite, Tower Bridge. Slide Show here.

The bridge itself from the south bank of the Thames

The top of the south end of the bridge, warders would stay here.

the north end of the bridge

the main north tower. The two top blue passageways are used for parties. Pretty interesting place to have a glass of wine and look up and down river, specially during the night.

the shield of the UK

top of the tower.

entering the main tower.

this, believe it or not, is one of the tributaries of the Thames. its not a sewer.

The London Thames river police and traffic control post.

An ugly ass gargoyle peeking out.

The underside of the bridge

The south main tower. People frequently dont realise that this is a suspension bridge, these blue giant steel bits are actually cables which are hung on the main towers and support the bridge by pulling it up. So more weight you put on the bridge, it becomes stronger..sortta.

Two other intrepid members of the SepiaSet.