Saturday 28 May 2016

Eye spy in Knightsbridge

This week's London Street Photography Meetup was "Eye spy in Knightsbridge". We were tasked with 5 themes - anonymous, glasses, windows, phones (almost hard to find someone without one) and close-up for the merry band of covert operatives.

 
 
 
 

Polly had us channelling a bit of Dougie Wallace and his Harrodsburg project, which encouraged me to eschew my usual street photography monochrome. Luckily the Harrods' window displays were vibrant and flowery, and as one of our themes was reflections in windows, or through a window, it gave me something to work with.

I also managed to add another pigeon in flight shot to my collection.
 
 
 

My favourite image of the day was a shot from the hip photo of an extraordinarily elegant woman reclining against the main entrance of Harrods, framed by the flowery window and clutching her phone, as most people were today it seemed. I think she may have clocked me though.

 
 
 

There were a couple of astonishing coloured outfits too, plus a fabulous hat! And I even opted for a rare selfie, I was inspired by sporting my new vintage Leica as I hoped to find time to grab some film and perhaps advice on cutting that film. Though actually you can't really see my lovely Leica jewellery in the reflection.

 
 
 

This was my 24th Meetup and my very first was also in Knightsbridge. That time we spotted Dougie doing his thing, this time we just had an angry women demanding to have Mikey's photo of her deleted, and yet kept repeatedly wandering by in front of us holding a bag in her face. I couldn't resist taking a sneaky photo whilst she was in full attack mode, and amazingly, I got away with it!

 

Saturday 21 May 2016

The case of the disappearing markets!

 
 

Today the London Street Photography Meetup photogs tackled the street markets of Soho, though with a talent developed on previous Meetups, we've driven them away and the aforementioned markets appeared to be somewhat rather thin on the ground. But we switched to plan B and resorted to stalking, lurking, mingling around Soho and Chinatown and picking out faces from a crowd.

 
 
 
 

As usual I'm drawn the people who along selfies and checking the results. Maybe it's because they are in their own little selfie world and don't notice me taking photos of them taking a photo.

 
 
 

Sunday 8 May 2016

Danger of death in the zone!

 
 
 
 

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine! Well we did survive the "End of the World in Smithfields" London Street Photography Meetup, whilst enduring the most glorious weather a Polly Meetup had ever experienced.

 
 
 
 

We're back documenting the very end of the world again. The plan was to explore and escape from three contaminated zones around the ever so quiet meat market capturing the emptiness of the deserted streets, eerily quiet after the humans had gone. Sometimes the panic-striken fleeing humans leave detritus and the odd body part in their wake which adds a little colour. To be fair, no body parts seemed to be strewn around, there wasn't even any meat at the meat market. Though that's a relief for health and safety at least!

 
 
 

My favourite image today was achieved by poking my camera into a grill and focusing on the danger of death sign. The sunlight pouring through the other circular apertures formed a pleasing bokeh, and the padlock got framed too. I also loved the interesting lines the shadows formed by the roof of the market.

 
 
 
 
 
 

We discovered an almost entirely empty underground car park which was generated rich hunting ground for dark corners, painted arrows, random bits of iron staircase and street signs.

 
 

To capture a few worm-eye views of the post-apocalyptic world I attached a pocket tripod to my Q, positioned it carefully on the road and then used my iPhone to control the all camera settings. That's how I was able to capture a fast food container conveniently nibbled by a rodent, certainly preferable than me lying face down in some less than fragrant alleyways to get the shot!

I also used the same technique to take a sneaky action shot of our group heading for the next zone...I believe it was the pub zone!