The heart of London

Come back with me. Come back to the summer. To London.

An alien metropolis, heavy with feet. Sawdust, perfume, cooking, suncream, something citrus, the incense of youth is on the air. The breeze is humming with it. Like mitosis, a slow frenzy multiplies out from corners of unremarkable groves and lanes. Concrete trembles with the heat and deep sutures open into the grey belly of the city as its metamorphosis unfolds. Beneath flat steel and and geometric structure, colour is starting to show. For all its year long busy sins, a vibe is in the breeze, pulsating like a bass. The hot glow of the sun spreads a message as thick as treacle over towers and glass roofs: Summer.

London in full effect. The mouths of traders, slouchers, punters, tourists. A din of every sound you could never imagine mixed into a dizzying blend of colour. Mismatching socks, 2 day stubble, high-vis vests, sleeveless shirts, bronzing skin, hula-hoops, cracked skate decks, barefoot, old denim, a small dog, gossamer dresses, cups of cold juices. Limbs arranging and rearranging into infinite patterns of people. All the dull lines are warped in the heat, uniforms away. Top buttons are wide, neck ties forgotten. Cleaners stripped to the waist. Now a decorated push bike, now a grown man on a foot scooter, everyone making friends with everyone else’s dog. Great backdrops of mellow Embankment and a cacophonous Shoreditch. Infinite visual tricks, nothing sits still, not one ordinary thing is untouched by the glow.

And I can’t get enough. My eyes are trying to burn it all to memory on a sheet of colour negative film. And Behold! How foreign does it seem from our winter hive, like a land forgotten? A time machine from the photolab this week. How much I love my film, I cannot even begin. For the disorderly chaos of these images, they simply hold all the answers for me. Thinking of summer, with chin in and collar up I can only anticipate what lies in store in another 6 months.