Photography by Nayeli Cruz

With the opening of the new Benito’s Hat on Great Castle Street near Oxford Circus, the now three-strong chain of London-based Mexican restaurants is promising not only to serve tasty Latin inspired dishes but also to share the visual vibrancy of Mexico with its customers.

To celebrate the opening of its Oxford Circus location, a “Hat’s Off to Mexican Street Photography” exhibition is on show now and through the summer featuring a number of fantastic photos by a handful of young photographers from Mexico City. The photos are big and glossy and available for sale as limited edition prints (£42 each). Contact the restaurant for details:

12 Great Castle Street (W1W 8LR) - 020 7636 6560 - great.castle@benitos-hat.com

The shots offer an awesome eye candy backdrop for sipping margaritas and savouring tacos. But in full disclosure, I should admit that I might be a bit biased: I helped curate the show, sourcing the images from my own adventures meeting with photographers in Mexico City back in 2010.

Drop by the downstairs gallery of the new Benito’s Hat to have a look and expect more great art there in the months (and hopefully years) to come!

I had a lazy Sunday afternoon stroll through this gloriously green and overgrown old cemetery (one of London’s Magnificent Seven cemeteries in fact) yesterday. Dappled sunlight, ancient graves, scenic views of London – Nunhead Cemetery is a brilliant place to let out your inner goth kid while still soaking up some rays. It’s definitely one now added near the top of my things-to-do-again (and again and again) list.

I could blather on about the historical significance of this 52-acre cemetery in South London, but as I would be reiterating what’s already worth your time to read at these sites, I’ll defer:

Friends of Nunhead Cemetery
Wikipedia
www.bbc.co.uk

Just let me say that if you’re keen for a mortality pondering picnic, a fantastic shutter bug day out or an evocatively excellent place to jog or walk the dogs, think Nunhead Cemetery. I’ll certainly be back. Although there weren’t crowds of visitors when I was there, I have heard it’s an especially popular destination. Since opening in 1840, people literally have been dying to get in (sorry, couldn’t resist).

By the way, 21 May from 11am to 5pm is Open Day, during which Friends of Nunhead Cemetery will be running tours of the cemetery and visits to its chapel and crypt which are not usually open to the public. There will also be guidance on family history, home made food and drinks at the FONC café and stalls run by local groups and other cemetery friends.

Have you started to notice the urban landscape of your beloved Borough of Hackney transforming into a more Olympic-friendly environment? How do you feel about that? No matter your opinion about the Games coming to town, don’t you think it would be a good idea for folks familiar with the area to document the Hackney of today before 2012 mania forever changes its look and feel?

Hackney Museum and Archives have been awarded Heritage Lottery funding to record how Hackney residents feel about the changes brought about by the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This involves a number of projects that will encourage participants of all ages and backgrounds to reflect on how they feel about the current changes and respond in a creative way. One project – which is just crying out for submissions by East London shutterbugs – is Capture Hackney. A collaboration with photographic events company Shoot Experience, Capture Hackney will provide a visual record of pre-Olympic Hackney for post-Olympic posterity.

Anyone’s welcome to submit an image up until the 17th of September with a selection of images to chosen by a panel of judges including Stephen Gill, to be exhibited at Hackney Museum as part of Mapping the Change exhibition. There are, of course, plenty of other perks and prizes for peeps keen to participate. To find out more about this opportunity to share your shots of Hackney, visit Shoot Experience’s Capture Hackney webpage.