Bartolomy’s Diary

I have just arrived back from Holland the journey was well smooth, actually all travel was smooth (makes a nice change).

The weather was rubbish, lots of rain and very few photos.
On Tuesday we went to Amsterdam and had an expensive (London prices for sure) lunch in the center of town. Later on we went to the American Hotel for coffee and wine where we took a few shots.


After that I spent most of the time helping my mom with admin stuff (she is still dealing with matters regarding my dad’s death) and photograph a ton of stuff ready to be sold on ebay…. Soo many mags and books that I simply could not finish it, then there are two cars and whatnot……
I guess my dad kinda liked to collect :-0

Had a few dinners with Rob and Hildegaard Nijhuis on Sunday and met Boudewijn en Miriam Schoemaker the day after where we went for dinner in Laren (Tapas), great food great service, great nights really.

The cloud shot is from above the English coast on Tuesday morning.

I am trying to shoot Brian Haw later on today coz I have not taken any off him for ten days and shortly after we left for Nl his display got taken down by a large group of police just before 3 am…..he has lost almost 90% of his display, check this space for some pix.

Pretty hectic day with lots of matters that needed to be taken care off before leaving…..I am also supposed to go to Dauwpop this coming Thursday, but the crappy weather (and last yrs experience at the same site with Dynamo fest.) makes me really wary of doing this, coz it will be muddy like no other, last yr at about midnight we had to wait for ages to have a tractor pull our car out…..something i’d rather give a miss this year…
Looking forward to download fest. in a few weeks time a lot more, TOOL are headlining the first day which should be great. I have managed to snag about 6 bootlegs of their warm up tour already and the band sound great.
Will try and add a few bits here while in Holland……………gotta get up at 4am….ugh

Here’s one more shot for the Lavish editorial coming out in the first week of Sept., I am shooting another “tailored style” story in about one month’s time, Saville Row stuff.
This shot took some pursuading amongst the staff but eventually it was agreed it would be used with the ghostly image…

Yesterday all layzeeeeee and watched movies all day. saw Cinema Paradiso (the extended dir. cut), Underworld Evolution (ha ha ha ha) and the Night Flier (a so so Stephen King adaptation). Today a bit of tax stuff and some adminning as tomorrow we have a few more meetings and gotta pack stuff up because we are off to Holland for a week.

I had a pretty long meeting with Ken @ Lavish to discuss things for the next month, and I am shooting in about a month a story about Saville Row boy/girl slick…….should be fun.
I then went to Braben to show me work and drop a disc off with pictures of the Trouble TV event in March and then I went to see Brian Haw briefly did not really speak to him, just took some shots and went back home, will shoot him On Monday before I leave for Holland on Tuesday morning.

I have been offered the job as a picture editor for a quarterly magazine, but it aint starting till the middle of July.
On my way back from that meeting I passed Westminster and thought “why not pass Brian and do a few quick shots”, seemed that I missed some serious action as burly officers arrived and took his bell away……a scuffle and quite a few words followed, later on I found out that the coppers arrived back to give him his bell back minus the dinger inside, it has been removed……
Silly games indeed….

I shall put some flowers on soon, shot them last week.

I worked at two events last Sat. eve and in between I passed by Brian Haw quickly and took a few shots, his voice was shot to sh*t so I kept yacking to a minimum, he had a few friends there for support.

On Monday the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was doing the rounds in London and was supposed to meet Brian as well, I know this is almost turning into a Brian Haw fan site, but not quite………….
Anyways Hugo just passed by in a car with blacked out windows when he arrived and came out about 90 mins later….Brian & co had made some signs…
David Shayler was there, interesting to hear him talk and he pointed me to the movie Loose Change,which is impressive and entertaining at the same time, and it asks some serious questions about the way 911 was dealt with (evidence-wise) and to tell you the truth, it is JFK all over again….
Not a bad set….

Here is the butterfly I was talking about, I have stayed inside mostly yesterday and today simply to let a bloody blister heal on my little toe, the skin will not harden otherwise, not been running since Monday and feel sorta confined…..looking forward working tonight in the west end…..
Tomorrow I am off to Parliament square again and shoot more of Brian.

Yesterday I met Xabier Celaya, the make-up artist to discuss some new ideas for some beauty style shoots, he comes up with 4 of which two are taken on board right away (and the other two will be developed a tad more for later this year) for shoots next month.

Then it is off to Parliament Sq. to see what is happening with Brian Haw, I arrive at about 3 and there are plenty of journos and photographers hanging arround (in a clique sorta way….) and they want action…….now I do not know how much is choreographed and how much is planned, or or this is just the way it happened (read: coincidence….) but everyone got “fed their bits” and they all went home happy ever after…..it looked like a pr excercise from heaven…..

Brian starts off ringing his bell and is shouting out at maximum levels, he draws the attention of a few of the photographers, but then it is evident that they all wait for the coppers to arrive to deliver a message…, all really official and by the book…
Not many believe they are coming, but some of the organisers think they are arround 5-ish, as this is supposed to be done during office hours….great I think, just in time for the evening news and well before any newspaper’s deadline. Brian asks me what I am thinking about when they will come, I say “They will come in broad daylight to deliver the message, but if they ever plan action then it will be @ 5 am, by stealth” . He laughs when I mention stealth……”yeah with stealth bombers” is his reply.
And yes at about 5 pm on cue a policeman arrives, a sgt. who is there to deliver the message and take Brian’s statement, but just before this is to happen Brian receives a phone call and makes the copper wait for a few mins, meanwhile we are all scrumming around Brian waiting for some “action”…….
Finally they talk, and Brian is giving him his statement, which Brian tries to drag out for as long as possible, some of the photographers snicker coz they all know Brian is taking the piss in a great way…..
Then after realising what is going on the copper dissapears and talks on his mobile and also to an inspector who tells the sgt. to leave it as it is and move away, Brian walks after him and has a complete go at the pair for not being able to fisnish his statement, meanwhile 40 peeps armed with cameras arround them follow them and record all this, we end up going to Whitehall and the coppers manage to dissapear after which Brian addresses all the cameras……and that is that……the photographers/cameramen are a goner within 5 mins after that, they all got their piece…..of the action.
Besides the policemen there was a bloke recording it for them as well, he had this construction where a d2x with flash gun was mounted on, and also a video camera to record everything, I wonder whether he also got the fracas afterwards……

I hang with Brian while he is on the phone (”I might be reported for what I have done”) and a few journos arrive who just missed it all……and are asking for any type of info….that is another thing the only questions they were asking were “what are you going to do?” “what if the coppers come…?”, all this McDonalds style reporting. In the end I see a bloke from BBC radio trying to put questions of that sort to Brian, who completely deviates from the subject in his answer, the interviewer asks the same question 3x, whereas the answer is simple…..Brian Haw will stay there for as long as he can, anything else he has not even thought about at all…..if he gets arrested, he gets arrested and the legal process will be used till it is completely exhausted….and then who knows……
His placards will have to be decreased to a 10 ft in any direction type area….wheras it is at least 60 , the question is just when…..
There are some other items on the list from the coppers (which I believe are 7 in total).

Some great shots, I am going again today, I am supposed to meet Ken from Lavish mag as well….time for a pint on a terrace I’ll say.

I am giving Brian a miss today and hope he is still arround tomorrow when I have to go into town for some meetings anyways….I have too much going on at home and I still have not even photographed the dead butterfly I found on the window sill. I took some shots digitally with a macro lens while it was still flapping about, but I should take some proper like I would with the flowers……..I think it has some excellent colors….

I was mostly in town yesterday when I wanted to see Brian Haw outside the Royal Court of Justice, and I found no one else there besides journos waiting about the outcome of the applemedia case…., so later on I go down to parliament sq. (after hearing he has lost his case) he is talking to the Mirror newspaper and I guess he cherishes the attention, he is full on…..

I hang for a while, there are about a dozen wellwishers around and later on when I leave that has doubled but nothing more than that, I am amazed that he managed to sit it out this long anyways….. I don’t know whether the legal process has been exhausted or not but that is more or less also when they will move in to remove him and his stuff……

Today besides meetings and phone calls and some translation stuff not much going on, think I will check on Brian tomorrow……

Been retouching my azz off, the Farnborough airport shots (working title “sky’s the limit”) are more or less finished.
Leaving in an hour to shoot a few of Brian Haw while being at the Royal Courts Of Justice, it is an important day for him, and it could go all tits up if they decide against him, as a matter of fact they could evict him right away after the court session.

Here are a few shots taken yesterday when we went for a walk around da ‘hood, all three taken in Abney Park, which starts to look very lush, some nice flowers there already, bet in the summer it will look even more impressive……

More photoshopping this weekend, trying to finish the airport story and final printwork to put in my folios…..

Here are some more flowers from 10 days ago….

The printing wont be done till early next week, something went wrong with the upload, so there was no need to visit Ze Bunka in Kent where Mustafa is residing/printing from….so I just went in town to pick up my book and see if Brian was arround. The weather was glorious today (still is actually…) and I thought a few more pix would not go amiss….
Looks like going there last Wednesday was a good move as the bariers had been removed again and so did some of the display Brian plastered against it. Speaking about display he had two new ones one was made on the spot for him, by an artist and the other was dropped off in the middle of the night by three artists in a van (he already has two Banksy’s). he was also in a very joyfull mood.
A yellow amphibious vehicle passes by and the tourguide announces Brian like he is a tourist attraction, Brian gets up after hearing several hellos and even follows them to the traffic light…..quite an amusing sight.

He told me, he is supposed to keep quiet till Monday not to cause any disturbance whatsoever, as he has a 10am appointment on Monday at the Royal Courts of Justice to hear the verdict, whether he is allowed to stay or not……I think I am going to go there as well, this needs to be covered for sure.

Here are some of Brian Haw shot today, did not make any contact as I stayed across the road, I saw the press photographers gathered outside (all using Canon equipment btw)so I stuck arround a little longer as I was hoping to snag a picture at the exit of one of the main guys at parliament as it was Prime Minister’s question time which could be a little hectic with the current political climate, with Charles Clarck messing up, John Prescott who could not keep his todger in his pants, and a pm who is hurting the party more and more…..what a difference from 10 years ago….weheras I did not see any difference at all during all these years…..they have not been better at it at all….the economy was already picking up during Major’s term…..
But Blair is prolly the best blagger in the country…..

Have not felt compelled to write a lot lately, we were in Essex for two days over the weekend for a chill at Ma&Pa Potasnick I went into their attic and got all my stuff down that we had stored there since last June.

Today I am off to see Tristan @ Channel 5, then it is off to Mustafa and pick a dozen prints up of some new stuff (the airport) and seascapes and sunsets, which are little winners in a portfolio:D

I am taking my camera as well and going to shoot Brian Haw again as the weather is blinding, would be stupid not to…..

Then it is back and make more appointments and finish the pix off for Visagie Magazine .

I have the flowers processed and waited with scanning them in for a few days as the negs came out rather curved, so “flattened” them a bit underneath a pile of boxes with prints.
A couple, more to come, here: