Around Angel, late August 2008

And another from the bananaman/woman, the first of two in one email - cheers! Oddly I'd just snapped two stray skins and sent them the other way, which although blurred and dim at least assuaged my faint guilt about my previous lack of response.

Near Blackfriars, late July 2008

Well here's something. This one was snapped and sent to me by the brains behind the London Banana Project. I heard about the site on Londonist (which I'd heartily recommend for London news and views), and, staggered that anyone else could consider photographing urban detritus a fulfilling hobby, dropped him (I incorrectly assumed at the time of writing) a line. I promised bananas. She promised balloons. She beat me to it. Reciprocation is only a banana skin away, happily. The search continues...

Pisa Airport, 8th July 2008

The UK does not have a monopoly on doomed balloons, of course. This purple one rolled and bounced along in a brisk warm breeze, a breeze that was a very welcome welcome to Italy.

From the Princess of Wales, Chalcot Road, 5th July 2008

Sat in the sun for a friend's birthday, a veritable succession of balloons drifted overhead. This green one was about the fourth to pass by, but the only one I managed to capture. In all there must have been half a dozen, which points to a common source. Needless to say, I will never know what that source was.

Pembridge Road, from 328 bus, 19th June 2008

This is about as close as it gets, a mad fumble for my phone as a blue balloon bounced across the mini roundabout into the path of a bus. You can just see it under the bumper. Predictably, when it emerged, it had been reduced to a tattered slip of rubber.

From Wembley Stadium, 7th June 2008

Well well, the second entry not taken by me, instead being snapped above the Foo Fighters' gig by one of the half-dozen or so Other People who knows about this: in this case, the very woman I was with for the first two, back on 3rd July 2005.

Love the shot too, a fleeting trefoil between giant arcs in sunlight and shadow. Cheers!

Acre Lane, 17th May 2008

Not 300 metres west of the pair below, I found this one trapped under a car. It was a damp grey and uninspiring day, and we'd been running around London taking photographs for a ShootExperience event. Our ten submissions were slightly laboured this time, and these two balloon snaps raised more of a smile than they did.

Acre Lane, 17th May 2008

This mismatched pair had become corralled at the apex of the traffic island's railings. Such an enclosure looked protective, but when I walked past again 20 minutes later, they had both disappeared.

Pembridge Road, 29th April 2008

I love this, as it's the first one I've ever seen being lost. Two Notting Hill mothers wandered along the pavement, each wheeling a toddler clutching a balloon. As I watched, one child let his slip, and it was up and gone before he or his mother could react. Indeed as my hand shot to my pocket for my camera, I assumed that I'd have to scurry down the street and stand right next to the mewling infant, phone aloft, as I gleefully snapped the cause of his misery before it shrank into the distance. But happily not. Not only was the infant utterly nonplussed (and his mother doubtless relieved by the fact), but a fresh-leaved tree had snagged the very end of the balloon's ribbon, leaving it bobbing patiently against a grey sky.

So I snapped guiltlessly and unnoticed as the mothers moved on, their incident likely quickly forgotten over cappuccino and chat, never to know the tiny thrill it gave the man they just walked past.

On my homeward commute the balloon had gone.

A217, around Cheam, 27th April 2008

A pale balloon on a grey day. Rare to be in a car, but the Sunday traffic slowed us to the extent that I could hurriedly fumble for my phone.

Brixton Road, from 35 bus, 6th April 2008

This free turquoise bounced further in 30 seconds than the bus moved in ten minutes. A fire in Brixton had closed the main road, sending the buses a tortuous route round various one way systems accompanied by countless confused cars. The closure contributed to its longevity; it skipped unhassled up the normally hectic road and under the police tape, continuing its journey towards the flashing lights and gushing smoke free from traffic and crowds.

Camberwell Road, from 35 bus, 29th March 2008

A second tree-snagged cluster almost exactly a week after the last. What they were celebrating before their escape is less obvious this time, though.

Tooley Street, from 47 bus, 22nd March 2008

An enormous cluster of St Patrick's Day survivors ensnared by a bare tree, and snapped from a speeding bus on a cold grey day. Given the profusion of green, white and orange balloons that had festooned pub fronts all week it was perhaps not surprising to see a few escapes, and the sheer number in this trapped group is indicative of the decorative excess in general.

Clapham Common, Long Road, from 37 bus, 9th March 2008

A group of three suspended in low branches. So low, in fact, that it implies their owner lost them elsewhere and they blew to this resting place from afar, rather than the more usual vertical escape from a careless hand.

St John's Road, from 37 bus, 16th February 2008

And about ten minutes later, a second pink escape. Its colour and heart shape make it even more obvious that this was a Valentine's reject. To see two in ten minutes is rare - maybe Clapham is a particular hotspot of dashed romance.

I was actually on the phone when I saw this, but couldn't resist taking it, so slipped back the lens cover and took the shot anyway, mid-conversation. That action didn't hang up as I imagined it would, but as I expected it to and thus stopped talking, my friend hung up after a few "hello?"s to the background bus noise. I rang back having taken it. As she, like most, has no idea about all this, I brushed the moment aside as an obscure technical glitch with the phone.

Clapham Common, from 37 bus, 16th February 2008

Blurred by haste as the bus pulled away. Perhaps this pastel pink one was formerly part of a Valentine's Day gift - if so the fact that it was two days later rolling unattended on a small urban lawn does not imply good things about the relationship it was bought to celebrate.

Burlington Gardens, 13th February 2008

Spotted while leaving Secret Cinema at the On/Off thing, which that night was festooned with balloons and dancing and costumes. Given the performance it was hardly surprising to see a ribboned and pastel escape on our exit, but on the way in, as the event name implies, we had no idea what we were about to see. It turned out to be "Funny Face", a film of such anachronistic naivety that it felt like an Attenborough-esque study of the lives of another species. S'unpredictable, this life...

Brighton beach, 10th February 2008

Out of all the balloons I've caught over the last 2.5 years plus, this is my favourite so far, and I think I'll do well to beat it. The sunset was incredible, neon red silhouetting the gutted pier, the wheeling starlings just visible at left, the lazy viscous waves... a snapshot scarcely does the scene justice. The balloon, green although the camera doesn't betray that in this light, was ripped furiously from left to right by the wind and waves, so much so that a minute before I was about to leap down from the concrete groyne to the beach to attempt to snap it in the surf. I'm glad I didn't. It shot past the end of my perch so quickly I had only a few seconds to capture it before it was lost against the darkening waters.

It is doomed, as are all the others, but what a final journey.