I went a-walking ...

Despite the heat yesterday I took my great-nephew for a stroll along a linear park in the city. The path is nice and shady , the pram has a big hood and I greased that little monkey up with so much sunscreen he practically slipped through my hands! We set forth and I was delighted with the soft southerly that was blowing along the riverbanks - made pushing the pram much easier. I spied some graffiti along the way and took a photo, thinking I might at some point use it as a background in a print. Now this got me to thinking ( please do not fall over, I do occasionally use my brain for pondering!), if I did use this as a background, would I be infringing copyright? Given the recent debacle that Men At Work have faced (read about it here) I guess I could be. Or, because it is public, does the artist give up any claim to it? Would it be morally wrong to use the image? Which brings me to another point, when is graffiti art and when is it vandalism? Tags do my head in a bit, they seem so frenetic and busy. I love political graffiti and paste ups and good images and I think the city would be worse off without them, they are part of the urban landscape. My goodness, all that deep thought whilst trundling along with a 12 month old who has just discovered raspberry blowing - the child is a virtuoso in that department! I didn't really draw any further conclusions 'cos the little bloke demanded a kiss and returned mine with a big, slobbery open mouth one of his own - after that nothing was as engaging or as interesting or as lovely as my dear little charge!

These are the images I liked the best.

In the case of the mushroom, the tags actually enhance the image and create an interesting backdrop.