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Grounded (33 images)

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  • As normal life continues a man under the influence of alcohol lies unconscious in Hollywood near a poster of Charlie Chaplin.

  • Incongruous and confusing landscape of natural world printed on to private healthcare trailer and safety barrier.

  • A woman street beggar prostrates herself on a pavement, ignored by Italian shoppers and pedestrians in Florence. As shoppers and tourists walk past in a hurry, pulling suitcases or carrying shopping, the people walk around the kneeling body whose stick lies on the ground with a paper cup to collect any spare change offered. There seems to be a mixture of indifference, pity and shame for what has become the modern face of Italian society in this once-grand medieval city. The city lies on the River Arno and is known for its history and its importance in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, especially for its art and architecture. A centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time, Florence has been called the Athens of the Middle Ages.

  • A street beggar has been noticed by a young Italian boy who points out the poor kneeling body to his parent. A stick lies on the ground with a paper cup to collect any spare change offered and a cash customer stands entering his pin number into the automated bank dispenser, his back to the underclass of society. This has become normal for what has become the modern face of Italian society in this once-grand medieval city. The city lies on the River Arno and is known for its history and its importance in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, especially for its art and architecture. A centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time, Florence has been called the Athens of the Middle Ages.

  • Having just unearthed more bodies from layers of volcanic ash and pumice, an archaeologist's assistant pauses for a cigarette, kneeling beside a victim of the AD79 eruption of Mount Versuvius over the ancient Roman town of Pompeii. Buried beneath huge amounts of toxic material this person was suffocated and crushed from falling debris. Preserved in a shell of volcanic material it is to be removed from this site on top of a villa roof where, it is calculated, this citizen was one of the last to die, having climbed 4 metres above ground level to await its fate. The Italian man ears a red t-shirt and holds a pick that has scraped and brushed away the soil to reveal the human form which also shows another body beneath. Others litter the rooftop too proving that many survivors of the first eruption perished after the second many hours later.

  • At a road junction, contractors drag cables along underground channels in Railton Road, Brixton.

  • Lying horizontal in a Budapest scrap yard are two Communist-era statues that were toppled along with the fall of the Hungarian Socialist state in March 1990. In the foreground is the statue of the once-hated Hungarian local Communist Ferenc Munnich who participated in the 1956 Hungarian revolution, then a member of the 'Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government', the Workers' Militia and then defence minister and earning himself the Order of Lenin in 1967. After Hungary's transition to a democracy, he has been dumped horizontally on a wooden frame, sliced off its original plinth at the feet and painted red, awaiting its fate. In fact this statue is now located in the theme park called Szoborpark (Statue Park) in the south of the city where he shares a political tourist landscape of 42 pieces of art from the Communist era between 1945 and 1989.

  • A construction worker still wearing his hard hat, takes a quick nap on the grass outside Tate Modern.

  • Two bald-headed men appear to show interest on a younger guy in public park near St. Paul's Cathedral.

  • Young businessman sleeps during a lunchtime break on the grass in St. Paul's cathedral churchyard.

  • As children play in fountains and pedestrians pass-by, a woman lies across a stone landscaped table in London's South Bank.

  • As a young office worker sleeps incongruously on a marble pavement, a street sweeper nearby brushes away litter with a small dustpan. The manual labourer wears blue overalls, yellow gloves and keys in his back pocket while the man in a wastecoat and smart trousers and polished slip-on shoes appears to be fast asleep, his fingers across his chest. This scene suggests the social divisions of the working man: Of the young, educated post-war generation whose opportunities have afforded them a faster lifestyle, far removed from that of the physically-demanding job of a man whose life has been spent cleaning and sweeping. English social differences is clearly represented here as the harshness of the manual labourer versus a lazy youth of today, seen in the middle of the modern city.

  • Two men enjoy their own versions of Blackpool North Pier, Lancashire, England. On the right, the first man is lying down on a bench with his trousers gathered around his ankles, his red bathing costume or underpants are baggy and he is looking across to something of interest while scratching his bald head. The second man on the right is not wearing a shirt and his stomach is spilling over his trousers. He has a bunch of keys attached to his belt and is pointing a video camera (camcorder) towards the shore. It is a comical scene and typical of Blackpool beach life. This northern sea side resort in the north-west of England is diverse in its transient holiday population whose behaviour can be routinely odd.

  • A man has chosen a free surface to spread himself out on during a lunchtime break in the City of London. Having removed his shirt and tie, he sunbathes topless with only his trousers and shoes, the clue as to his day-job in a London office. There is a heat wave in the capital and others are soaking up rays during a working week. Bronzed and asleep, the young man is carefree enough not to worry about his eccentric behaviour in a public place.

  • We see the upper-body of a businessman walking past the lower-body of another man also wearing a suit. We see the passer-by in a shirt and tie but only two hands, legs and trousers up to the waist of the sunbather, the rest of his upper-body is obscured by the angle of the lens. It is a witty perspective, leading us to believe that the two men are the same person. It is high-summer and lunchtime in the City of London, England, where workers exit their offices to lap up the welcome sunshine during a rare city heatwave that many take advantage of by lying on steps and benches, while fully-dressed in their work clothes.

  • Holding a brochure for the David Hockney art show, a foreign tourist has fallen asleep on a public bench in Green Park.

  • We are looking down from above to office and business workers who are lying down and relaxing in the grass in their lunch break at Finsbury Circus, a circular green park space in the heart of London's financial district, the City of London. Surrounding them is an art instillation of steel sheep that are incongruously grazing among the assorted people, much like they once did when London was a home to livestock en-route to market and other animals used for transport. It is a warm afternoon and in the foreground, a man wearing a dark suit has taken off his polished shoes and is lying his head on his jacket in the warm afternoon, loosening his tight tie and stretching his neck. Elsewhere, a lady is sitting eating a packed lunch with the Sun newspaper and a man a little further behind is in jeans and plimsoll shoes. The City of London has a resident population of under 10,000 but a daily working population of 311,000. The City of London is a geographically-small City within Greater London, England. The City as it is known, is the historic core of London from which, along with Westminster, the modern conurbation grew. The City's boundaries have remained constant since the Middle Ages but it is now only a tiny part of Greater London. The City of London is a major financial centre, often referred to as just the City or as the Square Mile, as it is approximately one square mile (2.6 km) in area. London Bridge's history stretches back to the first crossing over Roman Londinium, close to this site and subsequent wooden and stone bridges have helped modern London become a financial success.

  • Wearing a safety helmet and t-shirt , a nine year-old girl cyclist pretends to be asleep, having has collapsed on the grass at Peckham Rye Park in South London after a marathon ride into the centre of London. 'Freewheel' was a Hovis-sponsored event for riders and families to enjoy a day of traffic-free cycling through the capital's streets and this girl has ridden 18 miles on this late-summer Sunday - starting and finishing in this park. The shadow of a rear bicycle wheel can be seen to her right and she feigns death by spreading out on the grass, pretending to sleep before reviving herself with a drink and pedalling on home, yet another mile away.

  • Having removed his shoes and socks, and with his wallet sitting on his stomach, a city office workers stretches out over the lush grass during a hot summer lunchtime in trinity Square in the City of London, England. With feet wide apart and arms spread, the young man is clearly fast asleep under a hot mid-day sun. Risking sunburn after prolonged solar radiation exposure, he is joined by dozens of other co-workers who also enjoy the inner-city heatwave.

  • A lone bather wallows lazily in the calm pool waters at the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat (formerly the Bel Air Hotel), Alpes Maritimes, France. Basking on his back, the man lies with arms outstretched, the warm buoyant water making him weightless. he has found inner-peace and there is restful tranquility here, where surface-tension allows the bather to unwind completely in this idyllic place on the French Cote d'Azur riviera. Behind his head unoccupied sun loungers are facing the Mediterranean Sea, its clear horizon empty except for a lone yacht that sails along the ocean coast. The colour of both sea and pool are the same on this overcast day that allows us to experience a more muted tone to the scene, also allowing us to see the contiunation of natural waters, as if they run from one to the other.

  • A young girl stretches out her arms and her father supports her weight in an empty swimming pool in Miami Florida.

  • A boy stands leaning on a hand rail near the top steps at Paignton sea front. At the bottom of the steps and floating face down in the clear, unpolluted water, his arms outstretched, is a diver wearing a wet suit who appears lifeless. It is a scene of ambiguity and the viewer might be confused over whether the diver is in fact dead. It looks as if the diver has drowned but he is only enjoying the buoyancy of the salt sea water. It is a sunny afternoon and the shadows of the steps' rail which zigzags down the concrete steps.

  • With face covered and medal around neck, a London Marathon runner collapsed on grass, before being met by family

  • Plumber Pauline Brown in a flat conversion..Pauline Brown lies across the floor in a converted Hackney council flat bathroom... .

  • Lying in undergrowth, a camouflaged British infantry soldier is seen looking down the telescopic sight of the new British-made Long Range L115A3 sniper rifle on Salisbury Plain, Warminster, England. Sniping means concealment, observation and assassination, a strategy the British are using more against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Swiss Lapua .338 inch rounds (8.59mm) travel at sub-sonic speeds of 936 metres/sec, finding its target accurately up to 1,100 metres. The rifle weighs 6.8kg with telescopic image-intensified scopes to 25x life size vision, made by Schmidt & Bender. Front-mounted 'suppressor' minimises the signature normally compromising snipers' position. At £23,000 each, a £4 million contract has been awarded to Accuracy International, to provide the Army, Royal Marines and RAF. The British say this is the best sniper rifle in the world.

  • An Officer Cadet at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst is loaded into the back of a British Army Land Rover ambulance to join the downfacing trainers of a collapsed colleague, after retiring from an endurance race. Recruits run a 5 mile steeplechase around the Academy grounds to assess individual stamina and accumulate team points. Sandhurst is an institution which has bred staff officers since 1800. Today it trains future officers for the demands of leadership and military understanding of military understanding,. Students are tested for their command instincts, intellect, strength of character and physical endurance often under great psychological pressure - the demands asked of them in modern warfare. Failure in this test might not necessarily mean dismissal though perserverence or refusal to give up won't harm their prospects.

  • We are looking into the face of a young unidentified male patient before his wisdom tooth extraction procedure at the famous St. Bartholomews (Barts) Hospital in London, England. His eyelids have been taped shut, lying unconscious on his back with his head supported, prepped for this brief operation. Surrounding him is various medical equipment including anaesthetic gas that is fed through his nose by plastic tubes. it is spotlessly clean in this operating room, carefully, avoiding infection or bacterial problems like MRSA. Barts is Britain's oldest hospital - founded in 1123 - and boasts a progressive policy of encouraging day-surgery for out-patients allowing patients to return home soon after their minor operations.

  • Breathing through her mouth, a lady wearing a bikini costume lifts her head supported with her hands to start another sit-up repetition during a morning exercise session at Brockwell Lido, Brixton South London. With other bathers also lying in sun on the warm poolside pavement, some white and another Rastafarian with dreadlocks, it's a largely mixed crowd ethnically. Brockwell Lido in Herne Hill SE24 was originally built in 1937 at a time of coastal and city pool-building but went into decline when bathers preferred to holiday in warmer Spain. Its revival happened when local entrepreneurs re-opened the business and it now enjoys a reputation for some of the best urban swims in the UK.

  • A young boy peers over a clump of vegetation to spy on four beautiful women who are all lying face-down in a sandy dune near the seaside resort of `Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. The girls are oblivious to the attention he is giving them and he cheekily stands, undiscovered, with hands on hips. The four females are in bathing costumes and one is topless with their possessions strewn about the sand. It is a hot afternoon in the sand dunes and the girls are in an otherwise secluded, windless spot. They remain unaware they are being watched by a pre-pubescent voyeur.

  • Three bathers lie on the shingle in the lee of a groyne, a wooden screen from the fresh breeze that has been written on by unknown people having scrawled their names and a noughts and crosses puzzle written in chalk. One person wears his socks in true English style and the lady in the middle has her bag containing possessions near her head. Above them sits a lifeguard on a pair of high steps, peering along the beach with a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile, a lone seagull wheels around the coastal thermals and is caught between the wooden slats of the groyne.

  • Grabbing a quiet few moments in an otherwise busy environment, two people lie in long grass near the tall Canary Wharf tower structure a mile away in the background at Dockland's area of East London. On the grassy bank at Mudchute, a city farm on London's Isle of Dogs, England, the two people have been joined on this war summer afternoon by a small goat who is making its way along, munching at the lush vegetation. It is a seemingly rural location but is, in fact, an area of inner-city London, close to major construction projects, transforming Docklands into a major centre for finance and new housing.

  • Despite a gloriously bright summer afternoon, we see a depressing corner of Southend-on-Sea's Adventure Island. A young couple sits on some white towels in front of a wall that is adorned with graffiti and has its paint rubbed away. It is a scene of squalor and desolation in a town that makes revenue from the day-tripper holiday market. Since Victorian times, many Londoners have traditionally come to this south-east coast on the Thames Estuary, close to the capital. Towns like this have seen a marked decline since the advent of the package tourism in favour of exotic beaches in Spain.

  • man is lying down on the steps of Royal Exchange opposite the Bank of England in the City of London, to take a nap under a mid-day sun in the heart of the capital's financial district. A red double-decker Routemaster bus has stopped in a queue of traffic opposite with an advert for London buses saying 'We've got to get this city to work' but with tattoos on his arms and his forehead and wearing heavy army-style boots, he is clearly not on his way to a job and therefore out-of-place in this busy part of London. With arms folded and head resting on an unseasonal coat, the man is asleep and going nowhere.

I have to be honest, I'm not sure this is enough of an amusing theme: People on the ground, people lying, people floating and people prone.

So let's see where this goes and I'll prove myself right, or wrong. Early days but feedback welcome to richard@bakerpictures.com
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