Bermondsey Tank

There is a WWII Soviet T-34 tank near my place which I always wanted to shoot some photos. Finally brought my gears there after I watched a clip on Youtube recently about its story.



The privately owned tank is located at the junction of Page Walk and Mandela Way, near Old Kent Road, a highly unlikely place to find such thing.

The story behind: originally the land owner submitted a building plan but it was disapproved by the authority. He was pissed and submitted another plan for a tank to be placed there. The authority thought it was a septic tank and approved it... and next thing you see is a real tank there.

On the wall is "we all fall down" by graffiti artist Mantis.

I'd stayed there for quite a long time taking multiple shots of myself around the tank, for another 'self-cloning project', until...

two policemen came and questioned what was I doing there. I was not surprised as this is not the first time. Two years ago when I was shooting at Canary Wharf for buildings and kids playing I was stopped and demanded to delete the kids photos. This is not a very photographers friendly country. If you take photos of high profile buildings you are a suspect terrorist, if you take photos of kids you are a suspect pedophile.

Anyway, they are both very friendly and just took my details and asked me to be careful of the area. And now I regretted not to ask them to pose with me to include them in my self-cloning project!