street furniture

LondonUnderfoot#6.jpg
London Underfoot #6

The other day I posted about my series of prints called London Underfoot. I’m very gratified by the lovely reactions, including from my friend Jean, a Londoner. We have had a bit of an email chat about my use of the phrase ‘street furniture’ in describing those utility covers on the streets and walks of London which I had photographed and made into this series. Jean felt the phrase described only things like benches, mailboxes, lamp posts, that sort of thing – which is what I originally thought it meant as well. The first time I heard the term (and I had to search hard for that post!) was in comments to some photos I’d posted of drain covers here in my own neighbourhood in Vancouver.

Well, dear Jean went on to find and kindly send me two very interesting links, one with lots of photos and history of other London manhole covers and one about street furniture! I love those great designs in manhole covers and the fascinating history and most of all, this English language! As I wrote to Jean, some of the utility covers that I’d photographed were too small to be manholes, so there’s another intriguing thing! I now wish I’d made notes of each location of each metal plate that I’d photographed but at the time I didn’t know how this project was going to grow!

All this also made me recall a link I’d bookmarked a while back and which I finally found called drainspotting, about a book of photographs of Japanese manhole cover art which are truly amazing. One sure learns a lot on the ‘net!

January 20, 2011 in Arkeo, History, Photography, Printworks by Marja-Leena