London’s South Bank in the April sun: 1001 photos, luxury flats and a tennis racket acrobat -

Yesterday was a glorious April afternoon, with the Thames glistening in the sunlight and plenty of people enjoying the entertainment by the river.

I took a stroll along the South Bank and grabbed a few photos with my camera phone (too late, I realised that the batteries in my favoured Ricoh GR were totally flat).

Coming out of Waterloo station, I was greeted by the sight of yet another central London luxury development for the rich, going under the name of Southbank Place.

Apartments start at £750,000 and go right up to £4m, with the ghastly slabs of faceless glass and brick being developed by the Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company and Canary Wharf Group plc.

Naturally, there is not even the slightest whiff of social or affordable housing to be found in this foreign investor’s paradise. So depressing.

Things looked up once I got to the Festival Hall, which still has plenty of public space for ‘normal people’ to use.

Looking out to the City from Hungerford Bridge.

Shadows and park bench.

Running until the 10th April, this exhibition/installation in the OXO Tower features over 1000 black & white photographs by Steve Hollingshead, all taken since the start of the Millennium.

The photographs had been selected from an archive of over 120,000 b/w negatives covering 15 years, with each image representing one specific day.

Although there’s some excellent photos to be found, I found the sheer bulk of the collection somewhat overwhelming.

With no central theme running through the photos or any explanatory captions – and all of them being the same size – it felt a bit like flicking through random photo books and failed to keep my attention for too long.

Less is more!

There’s always street theatre taking place by the Thames, and this guy pulled a big crowd with his rather amazing ability to get his body through a tennis racket.