Docklands Night Railway

Since I moved into my flat, the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) has become my connection to the rest of London. It takes me to Canary Wharf, to Stratford, to Bank and to the newly opened Elizabeth Line. The one thing that makes them different to all other public transport in London is that they don’t have drivers, kind of. They have Passenger Service Agents who open and close the doors and start the train going, but they don’t always sit at the front or wear a stylish hat. This means, like the top deck of a bus, you can drive the DLR or at least sit and pretend you are.

One night, while the train was trundling along the tracks, which are in relative darkness with the lit-up city all around, I thought about how great it would be to capture the bright stations as the train approached.

The DLR was opened in 1987 with 15 stations but rapidly expanded over the years to a current tally of 45 stations. Most DLR stations are quite mundane during the daytime, but at night, even the older-style stations take on a magical feel when you look at them from the front of the train. The light from the platforms bleeds onto the tracks, shooting out of the station like starbursts. The two platforms are brilliantly lit with the metal grooves slicing through them, and the whole thing looks like an oasis of lights in the darkness. Mostly, they are high up above the streets, they are sometimes underground, and often they are surrounded by apartment blocks, but the nighttime highlights their architecture and makes them come alive.

So I’ve been riding the DLR at night and shooting out the front window of the train, exploring the line way beyond what I usually travel. It has been really captivating and intriguing how different the stations are despite the essentially basic configuration they adhere to. Some grand, others simple, but at night, they all look beautiful.

See the entire collection here.

Canary Wharf after dark

Canary Wharf after dark, once home to container ships and tenements it has been transformed into one of London’s most sought after financial districts. The juxtaposition of money and history makes this corner of Tower Hamlets shimmer with creative inspiration for photographers and artists.

A few years ago I moved into a flat close by Canary Wharf. As I passed through the area’s bars, restaurants, and underground shopping centre I decided to document my experiences.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Canary Wharf was one of the busiest docks in the world

However, with the rise of container ships, it was no longer fit for purpose and closed in 1980. Its past is still everywhere to be seen, with a lot of the old docks' waterways still preserved along with the two marinas.

Now, it is home to some of the world’s richest companies and exclusive residential properties. 

The combination of the strong architecture, superb lighting and water make it a truly unique location.

When I started this project, I decided it would run very differently from every collection I’d put together before. I no longer have an Instagram account so post on Flickr more, but the biggest change for me has been that I no longer chase the likes and followers.

This project was scoped, shot, and edited in its entirety before anything went onto social media. 

I believe this has given me a stronger idea of what works and holds the collection together in a way that couldn’t be achieved if I’d uploaded promising shots to Instagram and Twitter as I progressed.

The requirement to post shots each day alters my creative process so by sidestepping all of this and waiting until the entire project is finished before promoting it, I’ve been able to create something which feels truly special.

I started shooting when the clocks went back in November 2021, taking multiple long walks around the area

I got to know Canary Wharf and the surrounding places and the spots where I could explore the intersection between buildings and people.

I learnt where the light really worked, and in the run-up to Christmas became a regular in the area during the early evening, documenting what I saw.

After Christmas, I took a short break during the coldest weather and allowed myself time to live with the shots I’d taken. I found the photos I felt had the most potential and printed them to display on my corkboard as I edited.

Out of the 50 shots which had made it out of Lightroom, I reduced the shots I was happy with down to 10. 

I resumed shooting again at the end of February. This I found hard going. Initially, I was concentrating on the people of Canary Wharf. While I was cautious not to take close up shots, I saw this project as a human story. However, this made it a mixed collection and I wasn’t happy with the direction it was taking.

On a rainy Saturday, I went back and looked again at the shots I’d taken and realised I could see a bigger picture.

The interaction between people, architecture, and light emerged.

Shots I had discarded because the people were shadows and faceless suddenly felt as though they were the story. Combined with a saturated cold light edit, it all started to come together.

I identified 20 shots that told a story. The tale of Canary Wharf, a place where people live, work, commute, and eat and drink but that still feels cold and empty. 

After being so obsessed with getting closer, I realised the characters of this story were merely stick figures in a mass of concrete and glass.

Out of the 20 shots I’d picked out that reflected this new sense of scale, I went back and reshot a number of them now I knew what I was aiming for.

Finally, I had a project review with the photography tutor I worked with in New York, Christine Callahan, having a completely fresh set of eyes was incredibly valuable as she has never visited Canary Wharf. She helped me edit down the collection and remove shots that were interrupting the flow and didn’t fit the narrative.

As Summer rolled around and the evenings became lighter I had to shoot later and later which changed the types and amount of people, so at this point, I decided to end the project.

I waited for the right people and the right moment which allowed the light bouncing off the architecture to engulf the scene.

I’m very happy with the result. 

It’s a new view for me and a new process that I think I’ll be sticking with. 

It’s tempting to say Canary Wharf is soulless, but there is a community, it’s just they inhabit a glass, steel, and water world lit by tungsten. 

Some people might even say Canary Wharf is ugly, but for me, it has incredible beauty and my goal was to capture some of that within my photos.

Canary Wharf after dark

Things of my life

Often the smallest things can hold the most meaning. I bought a flat in 2019 and finally was able to have a secure permanent place for all my things I’ve been lugging around the UK. Finally, I can display my vinyl, magazines and computer games. But hiding at the bottom of a lot of the boxes of possessions are the tchotchkes, gonks, cereal toys, giveaways, presents, tools and misc items which you picked up or were given along the way. Presents from friends, promotional items given away at work or just little things you simply had to have. They span a long period of my life and while I have some of them out on shelves a lot live in the cupboard. So in 2020, the year of crazy where street photography meant photos of empty streets, I thought I’d give these memory-filled trinkets a second wind. Another moment in the sun, or rather LED lights of the small white box I bought from Amazon during the lockdown. Each one tells a story and so here we go…

Rubberband Ball

I was living with Anna and she had this rubber band ball. In the UK a lot of Postmen/women use red elastic bands to hold together letters and you can sometimes find them on the street. Anna had diligently built this ball from those very bands and I coveted it. Eventually, she gave it to me and it’s been in boxes for a lot of its time with me. Now the rubber has so perished a band will sometimes ping off when you handle it. It now lives on my shelf.

England Stamp

When I started in business with Phil we didn’t have much money to get letterheads printed. The name of the business was England Art, mainly because we just liked the sound of the word England. Companies House said that we should add something to it as just calling and company England might not be approved for nationalist reasons so we added Art to it. We inkjet printed a letterhead with our address on and a box at the top with the ART at the bottom and used this stamp to A.add some colour and B.its arty ain’t it.

R2D2

The little R2 unit stands only 6cm tall and has a battery and remote control. I bought him when I was working at Livenation and he zipped around my desk there for all of about half an hour before he broke down. Now that’s what I call dedication to staying in character. I’ve since bought a much bigger model that rotates his head and makes suitable noises, as well as the two or three R2D2 Lego minifigs I have. I like R2D2, when you see those polls voting for the best robot in sci-fi well there is no competition, just like the best space ship, it’s the Millenium Falcon obviously.

Understand Pin

In 2003 I worked at an e-learning company in Winchester and they had a piece of technology called Understand which was aimed at improving the lack of face to face tuition in e-learning. They needed a logo and I designed this incredibly generic butterfly shape and to my Senior Designers horror, the marketing people chose it. It might not be original but it makes a lovely pin badge.

Pet Shop Boy’s Play Button

This was a special edition of the Pet Shop Boy’s Electric Album that comes on a button badge that holds a little MP3 player. It only has an earphone socket on the top and some play buttons on the back, you charge it through the earphone socket with a USB cable provided. It now sits on top of my speakers in my living room. Incidentally, I was going to buy a signed print of the cover to frame but I didn’t, I wish I had now.

Pocket Watch

I’d only been dating Madly for a couple of months when Christmas came around and despite not knowing each other very well we had a bash at buying presents. I can’t even remember what I bought her but I was astounded when I opened this pocket watch. I have never wanted or even needed a pocket watch but I loved it and it will remain a treasured possession.

Eurodisney Keyrings

I’ve been to Eurodisney twice. Once in the early nineties a couple of years after it had just opened and then again in about 2008. Both times I bought a keyring with my initial, you can tell which is which. Eurodisney is a funny place. I love a good roller coaster but I’m not especially a Disney fan. I think The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was my favourite ride.

Star Wars 1977 Badge

This is an original 1977 Star Wars badge released around the same time as the movie. There are a number of designs I’ve seen on eBay over the years but this is the poster design and I love it. It was given to me by a girlfriend who knew I loved Star Wars, incidentally, when we split up she asked for it back, I probably should have given it to her but I didn’t.

Printers Magnify Glass

This goes way back to when I was 17 back in 1989! I had left school and had managed to get a place on a one year Graphic Design foundation course at Southfields in Leicester. I quickly became friend with a guy called Rob and eventually went over to his house as he was setting up a vinyl sign company. His dad was a printer and he gave me this Printers Magnify Glass, used to check close up registration and colour on 4 colour lithography printing. I’ve had it ever since and also still the little leather case it came in.

iPod Nano Fallout 3

This iPod Nano was given to me by Keith when we worked at IPC. It has the Fallout 3 logo engraved on the back. As far as I know, it still works but I haven’t used it in years. I really like the way it curves at the edges and it’s a lovely thing to hold in your hand.

Nanoblocks Panda

I was given this by Danielle while I worked at Immediate Media. I think it might have lost a couple of blocks and when you shake it there is something loose inside, maybe a baby nanoblock panda? It’s pretty dusty, it’s been around the UK and also spent a year in storage while I was in New York but it now has a forever home on my shelf next to my cardboard Millenium Falcon.

Scottish Referendum Yes & No Badges

In 2014 I was living in Livingston between Edinburgh and Glasgow and working at Freeagent in the Haymarket area of Edinburgh. During my time there Scotland was deciding whether to stay with the United Kingdom or split off into its own country. It was fascinating and I even got to vote myself but during that time I collected these two badges for the opposing sides of the argument.

Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds

In 2010 Ai Weiwei had an exhibit at Tate modern which consisted of millions of individually handcrafted porcelain sunflower seeds which were spread out over the ground floor. If you managed to get there early enough you were allowed to walk on them, touch them and… steal a few. They eventually stopped people walking on them because they said it was kicking up dust which might be dangerous but it probably was because people were walking away with handfuls.

Orange Earphone Splitter Robot

This was a promo item I got from Orange when I was a subscriber and the two eyes are where you put your two earphones and the head pulls off to go into whatever music source you both want to listen to. Pretty neat design and very cute object except it never worked.

Two Pound coins

These are a small collection I have of £2 coins which have designs that mean something to me. Top left is a coin about Florence Nightingale who was born on the same date at me. Next is the abolition of slavery and on the right is Charles Darwin cos science innit? Bottom left is the United Kingdom and the bottom right is Charles Dickens.

(the best of) New Order promo puzzle

I actually have no idea where I got this, most probably from my friend Mark who was a record dealer in the nineties. As a compilation, this was nowhere near as good as Substance and even the cover wasn’t as good but as far as promo items go, it’s a nice one.

Snooker Chalk

When I was a child we had a 6ft snooker table in our dining room, my dad and brother would play after tea and friends would often come over for a game. I even had snooker lessons at a snooker club on Loughborough. In later life I often played pool, especially when I worked at LiveNation as they had a pool table and would play with Tom. In 2017 I live in a Guardianship in Borough and a couple of the guys who lived there bought a ¾ size slate bed table only to find they couldn’t get it up the stairs, so it lived in our room. The chalk is from then when I would play almost every night. The table was really beaten up but Enna bought me a cue and it was good to get my cueing eye back in.

Tate Members Cards

When I worked at IPC, the Blue Fin Building was right behind Tate Modern. When I was stuck and needed inspiration I would walk over to Tate and browse the book store or see an exhibition. Over the years the members cards changed designs and some are lovely, others not, but despite that they open up a world of amazing imagery and a feast for the eyes, as well as the member’s bar ;)

Download festival programme

In 2007 I was working for LiveNation who run the Download festival in Donnington Park. This was a lanyard I designed which doubled as a festival programme, map, merch and other important information. The year before my first project at LiveNation was to design the festival skrim, which is the huge speaker covers either side of the stage, I think that’s the largest thing I’ve ever designed, you can see it here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/spooke/163851227/in/photolist-ftMga

Porsche 356 Diecast Model

I have a driving license which I got over 17 years ago but I have neither driven or owned a car since passing. I’ve always lived in cities with great public transport and never really considered having a car. But if I did, there is only one car I would consider; the Porsche 356. The most beautiful car in the world, in my opinion. Designed by Ferry Porsche, the son of the founder of the Porsche company in 1948 and based on the Beetle. It hasn’t been bettered.

Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros

The newest and shiniest thing in my collection of Things of my life is the 35th Anniversary special edition Game and Watch Super Mario Bros. I admit I was never a Nintendo boy when this came out in 1985, I was still very much into my Sinclair Spectrum but over the years I’ve found myself playing this game on emulators, my 3DS, my GPD XD and my Nes Classic. I also have to admit I’m more of a Sonic fan but this is very much the OG of platformers and this Game and Watch edition was too nice to pass up. Happy Anniversary Mario!

Move away from Instagram back to Flickr

My final Post on Instagram.

I joined Flickr in 2004 and used it pretty solidly until 2014, by that time Instagram had become a phenomenal success and was too big and important to ignore. I operated both accounts for quite a long time until I eventually stopped using Flickr completely.

Between 2014 and now Instagram has changed considerably. It used to be a photography platform, somewhere that you could share your work and get great feedback from other photographers, whether they were shooting on DSLRs, phone cameras or film. However, it’s success has consistently diluted that benefit and its purchase by Facebook has turned it from a photography app to the visual arm of Facebook. Adverts are now rife and it’s been labelled the worst platform for young people’s mental health. 

I think it’s important to stress how damaging Instagram is, scoring highly in anxiety, depression, loneliness, sleep, bullying and ‘FoMo’ (Fear of Missing Out). The reason this is so important is that second to music, photography has become one of the most readily consumed art forms and something which 15 years ago only a portion of the population took part in. Now nearly everyone owns a camera and now regularly documents their life, especially young people. 

I remember a friend getting a Nokia 6600 back in 2003 which was the first time I’d seen a camera phone and at the time it seemed relatively pointless, the quality was so low and the internet was so basic there were very little uses for it but then the iPhone came along and changed everything. Our relationship with photography morphed over the next 5-10 years, Photoshop went from relative obscurity (outside the design world) to a Verb. What started with Twitter connecting us to celebrities Instagram took to a whole new level and even created celebrities; the influencer was born because of Instagram. 

Now I am not the kind of photographer who bemoans the rise of the cameraphone. I love technology and think that smartphone photography is as important as the invention of the Box Brownie camera 110 years earlier. It certainly had the same effect, putting technology in the hands of people who previously could not afford photography. Whilst professional photographers have clearly seen it as having an enormous effect on their businesses in terms of the art form, iphoneography *shudders at the term* will be remembered as a milestone in photography.

So now we have 3.5 billion people with cameras and a singular platform pretty much everyone uses it can no longer remain the platform it was. It’s a commercial and data mining behemoth for Facebook and what made it good when it was launched has now gone.

I haven’t really enjoyed using Instagram for a long time. It’s just been the way you post your images but with Facebook’s clear reluctance to change and continue to erode our society and democracy it’s just too much now. As they weave together Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp so they cannot be regulated and broken up I can no longer say to people ‘I don’t use Facebook’, Instagram is Facebook with a different mask on. After 2016, Cambridge Analytica and the recent highly successful film The Social Dilemma it’s no longer an option in my mind. What started with me leaving Facebook and changing all my site logins away from FB login, cancelling my Spotify because they wouldn’t let me disassociate my account with Facebook has now moved to now calling time on Instagram. Only Whatsapp remains.

So I’m going back to Flickr, now owned by SmugMug and in need of support, Flickr was one of the first largescale image sharing sites on the Internet and has survived being owned by Yahoo! which is more than be said for a lot of the startups they destroyed. They are transparent about what they do with your data, I pay for a professional account so I am no longer the product and it feels nice to go back to a photographers site. It’s like slipping back into an old jacket which might not be most stylish or even well made but it has personality and it works for me.

Hello again Flickr!

You can find me here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/spooke/

Red Dead Redemption 2 - Saint Denis

For the past six months, I’ve been walking around Saint-Denis taking photos. Soaking up the New Orleans style atmosphere and walking the back streets, often at night, to capture the horse-drawn carriages, steam trains and the people in 19th-century dress. I’ve been using a box camera much like the Kodak No.1, but my version shoots colour, has a zoom and a shutter speed that rivals any Nikon or Canon. I’ve been out there in the rain and thunderstorms, dodging the bar brawls and getting trampled by cowboys on horseback.

But this isn’t Saint-Denis the suburb of Paris and I haven’t travelled back in time but I’ve been shooting in Red Dead Redemption 2, a PS4 game set in 1899. Rockstar, who make the game, have recreated a period city within the game and your character Arthur has a camera much like the cameras of the time (even if it’s supercharged way beyond what could be achieved in 1899). I’ve been experimenting with In-Game Photography.

A lot of photographers wouldn’t even consider this photography but if you define the art form as composing a scene and waiting for the decisive moment then this is absolutely how I would see it. In-Game Photography has been around for quite a while now, starting way back when games first were born it didn’t really come into its own until the nineties with games like The Sims and Second Life. Players would put hours in to create or develop a character and wanted to save their work for prosperity. Now there are countless In-Game Photographers out there and most big game companies hire photography minded creatives to develop screenshots to promote games. Most people just want to show off moments in games which they think are beautiful or catalogue their achievements.

Increasingly on sites like Reddit gamers are creating shots which are masterful in their composition, beautifully lit and expertly processed and these are people who’ve never touched Lightroom or taken a course in photography. SubReddit’s like In Game Photography have many examples of work that prove that photography has many facets, and you can explore and master some of those facets, like composition, while the other facets are taken care of by the device.

Red Dead Redemption is the first game that I’ve played where I really felt like I could apply my style of street photography to this medium and I’ve had so much fun taking shots around Saint-Denis of the interaction of the people, the architecture and the light. Everything you see in the pictures is ‘candid’ as in I couldn’t stop time or move elements around to create a scene. All of these pictures were captured in exactly the same way I shoot real street, by hanging around, waiting for the right subjects and revisiting areas I liked over and over again.

I shot the pictures in the game, uploaded them to the Rockstar website, downloaded them and processed them in Lightroom, playing with the colour balance, adding depth and making the images pop a little more. But essentially this is like a window into the past, I can’t go back in time and take these shots and even though this is an artistic interpretation I’ve really enjoyed my time in Saint-Denis.

As games get even more realistic, offer even more photography options (many games now allow you to freeze the frame, spin around the scene and add depth of field, change the time of day and lots of other options) In-Game Photography will be recognised outside of the niche online forums it currently occupies.

Soho Spotlight

There is a reason for why I’ve taken so long to upload the final versions of these pictures but I don’t know what it is. I also processed these shots in the autumn but again they have sat on my hard drive waiting. I don’t know why.

The first shots were taken at London Pride in 2017, with the last shot taken in September ‘18. There have been big gaps between flurries of activity and although London has many more nooks and crannies to find people in, it’s much less consistent in the kind of people I want to shoot.

If you look at my Instagram feed, you will see various versions of these images in different crops and processing. I’ve been attempting to experiment with my framing and create a collection that has a different feel to previous ones. However, when I go back and collect together the shots for the final collection I still am drawn to the centre crop. I think this might be because I want to tell a consistent story with the images and it also appeals to the typology side of my photography brain.

Another significant change from previous work has been my approach on the street. When I was in New York I was constantly on the move. In London, because of the type of people I wanted to capture and the vastness of London it because clear that I really needed to stay in a number of spots to maintain the style and quality of the subjects. The majority of these shots were taken on Carnaby Street.

You can see the entire collection here.

Brand New Work

The weather in London has been exceptionally good recently and the sun has sparked me to create some new work. It's not even on my Instagram yet but I'm so excited about it I want to show you now.

I've been thinking about why shoot the pictures I shoot and how people are coming out of the darkness into the light also that there are outlined like cartoons. The whole thing has some magical realism aspects to it.

I still don't know what it means, sometimes I think it's just because I've been a graphic designer all my career what I'm really doing is composing layouts and stylising them. But it has to be something more than that, however I still don't know what it is.

Coal Holes of London

I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I love a good typology. There is something very soothing about viewing them and similarly there is something very calming about making one. Usually they are inanimate objects which is a nice change instead of taking candid pictures of people on the street and the stress and strains that comes with that pursuit. There is also the added pleasure of taking pictures of things that are the same but different. You feel like an archaeologist discovering something just below the surface of the real world and uncovering details which most people have seldom ever thought about.

For me personally it is a palette cleanser, it allows me to take time to remember other aspects of photography that whilst in the maelstrom of creating a street project you forget, I get to use different f stops, light and composition. It also allows you to learn something different about the world we are living in and, for a moment, glimpse into other people’s reality.

Coal Holes are such a moment. I had seen these 7-12” metal plates on our street many times, often thinking I had no idea what they could be. I’ve even looked at them carefully, reading the typography and being no wiser before I decided that actually I had to take pictures of them. It was only after I had, and I started to search online for some kind of answer that I realised they are a link to London’s past that has long gone and will never return.

Placed sometimes only inches apart on the street they are chutes down to coal houses under the ground. I knew that in front of our building, under the road, were arches that were now empty. I knew this because we discovered a man living in one once but most of them have wire mesh over them now and any hints of coal have long since gone. Mainly used in the 19th and 20th century to heat and feed homes around the UK they were effectively stopped in 1956 when the clean air act forced oil and gas to be used instead.

While this is all very interesting, what really fascinates me are the designs. Different companies, different styles and (when the designs are the same) the pavement stone or concrete that surrounds them. The typography around the edges of, most probably, long since gone companies and the circles, patterns and stars that fill the centre.

So, take a look at the pictures, numerous people who have seen them have commented that they had never noticed them before but now they can’t stop seeing them as they walk around London. I am obviously not the first person to document them and probably for that reason I won’t go too deep into this project but for me it’s another lovely memento of the joys of London, one day they will all be gone and for that reason, I’ve loved taking pictures of them.

Oxford Circus Project End

So I said I was going to continue with my current project on Oxford Circus but actually I have decided to stop. The Christmas lights have come down and also the shops’ lighting conditions have changed so it would look different to the rest of the pictures. What I did do was re-crop and re-process a lot of them and you can see the final gallery here.

However, my Sigma lens works wonderfully so I’m going to explore other parts of the West End and find another subject, maybe Soho, maybe Chinatown or even somewhere completely different. The evenings still draw in early and until it’s no longer dark when I leave work I’ll use that to build upon what I’ve learned in this project.

I’ve also been remiss in writing my pieces about other photographers. I bought a book on Joel Meyerowitz and planned to write a post about how his work has not only influenced me but countless others.

I recently re-joined the London Independent Photographers. I’ve yet to go to a meeting but it’s something I need to make time to do as well as re-equaint myself to the world of Street Photography, if I have one New Year’s Resolution it’s to throw myself back into my photography. Last year was a rest and a review of what I wanted to get out of it, now I have a better idea I need to act on it.

My photography in 2017

Oxford Circus, Racoon, 2017

My photography in 2017 has taken a back seat, a new job and readjusting after coming back from New York has resulted in my output being significantly less than 2016.

The year started slowly. In February I discovered Wimbledon Dogs was closing its doors for the last time in March. This gave me four Saturday night meets to put together a project. The viewing gallery, which had seen much better days, was on the opening straight. The floodlit track gave me the perfect mixture of light and dark and I found shooting there really easy, I wished I had gone there sooner, over a much longer timespan. I could have really told and interesting story but with only four weeks until it closed it was difficult to build a story and get to know anyone. I was very happy with a couple of shots but on the whole it was a missed opportunity.

Last Of the Dog Days, 1, 2017

Last of the Dog Days, 2, 2017

Last of the Dog Days, 3, 2017

Last of the Dog Days, 4, 2017

Last of the Dog Days, 5, 2017

The summer months seemed to come and go quickly, this was because I had just started my job at The Business of Fashion and all of my energy was going into that. I did go and shoot occasionally but found it difficult to find the right spots and also the weather being so intermittent made it nearly impossible. Probably my best day was Pride, where I managed to get a couple of shots that really felt like a step forward from my pictures in New York. Next year I’m going to more carefully decide on locations, scout for places with the right kind of people and really double down on what worked this year.

All year I had been spying a Sigma f1.4 lens and in the first week of November, when the nights had drawn in to the point where it was dark at 5:30, I bought one.

I started a project on Oxford St which used the lights from the shop windows to illuminate my subjects. So every evening I walked up and down Oxford St for around an hour shooting people shopping, leaving work or going somewhere for a night out. There were various shops up and down the street which had really superb, bright windows and with my new f1.4 I could pretty much start to grab the kinds of images that I’d had in my minds eye for quite a while.  

Oxford Circus, Beret, 2017

Oxford Circus, Smooth, 2017

Oxford Circus, Bucherer, 2017

Oxford Circus, H&M, 2017

Oxford Circus, Beanie, 2017

At first I took all manner of compositions, groups, busy images of lots of people at once, multiple layers of shoppers and very close to very wide. As the project moved into its middle stage I started to focus my attention on the single, lone subject.

This is exactly what I did last year in New York and it has started to make me think more about why this is my preferred way to shoot. There has to be something in the connection you get when you pick out one person from the crowd, stand directly in front of them and take their picture. I think I’m looking for a one on one moment, especially as these are all people who catch my eye. I’m selecting the eccentric, stylish, beautiful people. The psychology of this should be simple to decipher, it’s plain as day in front of my eyes but over the years I’ve tried to deny it somewhat, I’m looking for cool people because I want to be that way.

It isn’t finished yet, I hope to continue into January, at the moment I have half a dozen shots I’m really happy with but now I have identified (and come to terms with) what I really am looking for, I want to zero in and make the second half somehow comment on that. I don’t know how I will do that, I feel like I need to face this head on, and I know I’ve said that before, but I’m going to be looking for ways to address it.

Sinéad Burke, The Business of Fashion

The year was rounded off with a fantastic shoot I did with Sinéad Burke who was talking at the VOICES conference about the trouble she faces daily exploring her love of fashion. Standing at 3’ 5” she is not only poorly catered for but actually finds the shopping experience difficult and demeaning. She wanted to talk to the collected audience of fashion industry leaders about how this untapped audience was a opportunity that they were currently missing. We went to TopShop on Oxford St to take some sneaky shots of her walking through the store to illustrate how the displays of clothes were sometimes impossible for her to interact with. She was so lovely and we had a great time taking the pictures. You can see her talk here: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/video/its-time-for-adaptive-fashion

So after 2016 in New York, this year has been very different. My view of what my life was going to be has had to change dramatically over the past year and while there has had to be some significant sacrifices there has also been some interesting movement forward. 2018 is going to have to work on that and see where I can take my photography, I’m trying not to force it but some answers to why might just show me the door to the next level. Let’s see.

A new start in November

An unpublished picture from 2016, Oxford Circus.

Last December when I returned to London, I started going to Oxford Circus to shoot in the evening. I particularly liked a spot next to the Nike store which had a LED screen which was predominantly white and created perfect Rembrandt light for my subjects.

After a couple of weeks, Nike changed the ad on the screen and it was more intermittent light, which made taking the images go from difficult to impossible. So I moved to Piccadilly Circus and started shooting under the lights of the electronic billboards but my 1.8 lens just wasn’t up to the task. Those images went unpublished and most still do. I might include them in the finished project.

Oxford St, 2017

Fast forward to November 17, and after what has seemed like a very barren summer, I have just bought my Sigma f1.4 lens. For around an hour after work every evening I’ve started walking up and down Oxford Street and seeing what it can do, and it does pretty well. The shop fronts are all lined up for Christmas, spewing out light and with a lovely mixture of people leaving work and shoppers, it makes for an interesting little project.

Oxford Circus, 2017

I’m still not sure what the focus is going to be, at the moment I’m just shooting everything I see that I like, the final edit will probably reveal a pattern of what attracts my eye but for now, I’m not really being fussy.

Outside Top Shop, 2017

It’s only been a week but already I have some interesting shots, but that’s just the start, I plan to shoot all the way up to Christmas, stay tuned.

Losing my mojo

This year I’ve shot a tiny amount compared to 2016. This is because I came back to London in December and spent most of the early part of the year looking for a job, once I’d found one all of my concentration went into settling in and pouring all my creativity into the challenges it set me. So now in August, all I have to show for my year is a short, but successful project at Wimbledon Dogs and a few sporadic street photo’s taken over the summer months.

However, I could have shot many times since being back in London and I haven't and I am starting to think about what my photography means to me, how my time in New York affected my approach to my work and what am I trying to achieve with this?

There have recently been a few articles online talking about how the modern photography student can no longer perfect their technical and aesthetical skills and achieve success in their course. They need to have a concept, embody lots of meaning and have a 'thing' to now stand out of the thousands of graduates that pour into the field every year. Older photographers note that when they go to student shows the meaning is put before the execution. In street photography, there is a similar vein of truth with hundreds of thousands of people out there shooting. The togs who seem to gain popularity are the ones with a strong theme and novel approach to execution. Often the photos themselves are middling to average. I can think of at least two popular street photographers who have had successful shows with work that is interesting in its concept but with immature results.

So what does this have to do with me? Well, I feel really quite stuck in a rut of wanting to shoot in bright sunshine where I can position myself where people can walk into the light and I can shoot them against the shadows. It's limiting in the days I can shoot and it also makes me wonder what I'm trying to achieve. With so few days available to shoot, London being so sprawling and varied in its people my choice of subject is random at best. I've considered only visiting one area and concentrating on that but so far I've not found anywhere that gives me the right conditions and the right people and anyway, who am I looking for anyway?

A couple of years ago I wrote an angry post about how I didn't want to play the game that street photographers are forced into playing these days, chasing followers, being active in the community to elevate your status, becoming a teacher to fund your lifestyle, writing endless blog posts on the top tips for new street photographers and all the other typical ways people feed their habit. All I wanted to do is shoot but even now purely shooting doesn't feel enough. After spending every day walking the streets of New York, having enough time to properly explore the areas I wanted, find the people I was looking for and take my time soaking up the city now with a full-time job and limited energy, this is difficult.

So I'm looking for identifiable projects and it leads me back to the question, why? Why do I want to take candid pictures on the street and where and who do I want to shoot. What is the meaning of my work? Should I just hone my approach and keep doing that or should I try and nuance it with some novel type of person or specific place?

I suppose the answer to all those questions is yes because at the moment I'm doing nothing and there is nothing worse in photography than doing nothing.

I am thinking about abandoning my spotlight shots and going back to the night, especially as the evenings draw in. I've spied a 1.4 lens I want and getting out there to shoot using electronic billboards as lighting. But I'm concerned about my motivation, my desire to create this work and I really feel like I need a kickstart to get it going again. Any ideas?

Eatwell Farm Lavender Harvest 2017

Joyce stacking the Lavender in the drying shed at Eatwell Farm

I’m at my brothers’ farm at the moment, during my visit they have their annual Lavender harvest. Over the course of a weekend the farm crew use chainsaws to cut the lavender and place it on the top of the bushes and members of the CSA give their time to come and bunch and hang the lavender in the drying room. In return they get a weekend at the farm, fed and watered very well indeed and a camp fire with smores.

I shot the event using my Sony and 35mm lens and applied the same processing as usual but with added saturation to really make the lavender pop. Please share if you like and tell me what you think in the comments.

Stacks of newly cut Lavender.

The crew cut the Lavender.

CSA members bunch the Lavender.

A CSA member bunched up Lavender.

Bees buzz around the Lavender.

A CSA member bunches Lavender.

Lilly collects the bunches of Lavender for drying.

Cameron bringing the Lavender into the drying room.

CSA members hang the Lavender.

Lunch in the farm house.

Smores

Campfire and the end of a long day.

Half Way Through - Wimbledon Dogs

I’ve been thinking of taking pictures of Dog Racing for a while. When I came back to the UK I kept reminding myself to look into it and it was only at the end of February that I actually did. I found out that Dog Racing in London was in it’s last days, Wimbledon Stadium was to be demolished and made into a new football ground. After it is gone, there will be no more Dog Racing in London.

That left four meetings until that world was gone forever so it is perfect for a mini project. I had never been to the dogs before, or even a horse race, so I had no idea what to expect. However, the pictures I could see online made it look perfect for my style of work and the lighting conditions seemed ideal.

I have just processed the pictures from the second week of visiting the stadium and I am half way through the project. So it seems a good time to get my initial thoughts down and record the progress.

Week one was simply a recce to see what it was all about and what kind of reception I would get taking pictures. In this kind of situation I tend to start long and get closer and closer until I get push back. There are two parts to the stadium, the inside and the outside. Inside there is a bar and restaurant and betting facilities. There are also benches which you can sit at and drink and face out the big windows to see the action. Underneath this indoor area is an extended bookmakers area but I have yet to explore this. Outside is the terrace? Paddock? I don’t know what it’s called but it’s where most people stand, drink, smoke and bet while they wait for the next race.

When the race starts the dogs are led out and are paraded along half the length of the first straight which is, I suppose, to let you have a good look at them and decide who to bet on. They are then walked back down the straight to the traps and the lights go down inside the stadium and on the outside crowd as the betting stops. The mechanical hare comes around the corner and when it has passed the traps the dogs are off. The race lasts 30 seconds if that. Sometimes there is a clear winner, but most of the time it’s not, which leads the crowd to turn around and look up at the screens inside the stadium and wait for the winner. Once this has been announced the bookies are back on paying out the winners and the process starts again for around 10-12 races in a night.

From my point of view the most engaging area of the whole event are the bookies who stand on boxes in front of their LED screens taking the bets and giving out winnings. The red light of the screens and the overhead lights that let them see what they are doing is just crack for my style of photography. Red light pours over the people lining up to bet and the bookies are perfectly lit against the darkness of the stadium. Harsh shadows and contrasty images are a plenty and I love it.

The crowd are a mixture of regulars, stag dos, work outings, families and couples. They are great subjects as they are socialising, betting, drinking and generally having a great time, most don’t even notice me taking pictures. The ones that do don’t seem to mind. I have yet to get really close and I’m still thinking about whether I should talk to people so I can get super close.

The first week I spent shooting the bookies, the dogs and a few of the crowd. The second week I spent most of my time getting crowd shots, there were a few groups of guys in vintage suits. I have a few good pictures of the dogs but I need a different camera to get the ultimate picture and I have been thinking about what I am going to try and achieve from the final two meets.

For the first time I’ve started thinking about narrative, something that has never possessed my work before. The observation has always been key to my work and even my car boot sale pictures didn’t tell a story. This feels different though, maybe it’s because it will soon be gone. The story is about the people, the bookies and the event, it’s about the night.

So I have started to think about a shot list, another first for me. Some shots I can see but haven’t been able to get. Others I know are there but haven’t seen or been able to visualise. An example of that is the wide crowd shot, all the images I’ve taken up and over the entire mass of people have been flat and mundane. From the side they are looking out to the track and from behind they are facing away from me. The shot is from the centre of the stadium looking across the track back at them looking at me, but I won’t get that. So I have to think of a way to capture them en mass, in action.

I am also thinking about what to do with the project when it is done. There is no shortage of photographers at the meetings so it’s clearly something that is a project for many other artists. Some of them will just post their pictures on Instagram, others might try and get them published, entered into comps or an exhibition. I am trying to think of a life for these pictures after the bookies, crowds and dogs have gone.

But in the meantime, I have two more meetings and aim to get the most out of them and complete what will be for me the shortest project I’ve ever done.

Saal-Digital Photo Book Review

I recently saw an advert on facebook for a free photobook in return for a product review. I filled in the form and promptly received a voucher code and the instructions to post an honest review on my Facebook or Blog, so here it is.

The first port of call for any of these book printers is how you are going to make your book. The usual way is to provide their own software, which usually range from abysmal to awful. As a proficient user of InDesign I much prefer to be given templates to produce it in the software I know. The Saal-Digital website had only two options, download their software or use a web based system. I downloaded the software and feared the worst but in fairness it was relatively easy to use and no where near as bad as others I’ve struggled with.

I chose a 28x19 landscape book, glossy without padded cover which allowed me to have 30 pages within the £40 budget. There is no mention of paper weight anywhere within the software. My Spotlight series was all printed in high Gloss but you can choose all configurations of cover and inner finish.

Once finished you complete the transaction within the software and then leave it to upload all the images and everything went smoothly.

The book arrived about 4 days later in a cardboard sleeve and sealed in a plastic bag and the first impressions are excellent. The book is hardback bound and the cover is beautifully thick and well printed. I have used two other book printing companies before, Blurb and Bob Books and the Saal-Digital cover is a step up in quality.

The first and last spreads are bound to the cover which is obvious but when I opened the book I wasn't expecting it so it threw me slightly but what was really surprising was the thickness of the pages. I think these are the thickest pages I’ve ever seen in a photobook, they must be at least 350gsm. Printed with my almost black images on gloss they really feel superb and give the book a feel of quality I haven’t ever had from a photo book company. The pages also open flat, so if you wanted to bleed images across them they would look fantastic.

The image quality was superb, my pictures of people in New York against almost black background printed as good as the prints I had produced at Adorama and other professional printers. Deep colours, not too saturated and crystal clear.

So if you are looking for a premium photo book, and at £40 + P&P for 30 pages this is not for everyone, but if you are wanting to archive a project or give someone a very special present I would recommend Saal, I shall certainly be using them for my project books from now on. I might get some prints made too.

http://www.saal-digital.co.uk

My Photography in 2016

New learning, new light and New York City were the main themes of 2016. I started the year in the USA and only briefly came back to the UK at the end of January, after that I spent an the rest of this intensive year concentrating on my street photography.

When I was thinking about how I was going to tackle NYC in early 2016 it was obvious that going back to school would probably be the best option. I took a course at International Center of Photography called 'New Colour Projects' headed by Christine Callahan. You can read my in depth blog post about it to find out more but it basically taught me two things, 1) Print your work and 2) Edit hard. For the course I created a pretty straight up street photography project. 

What happened next, under Christine's mentor-ship was far more surprising. On my way to class one day I shot a guy against a dark background, the sun was beating down the street and he was perfectly lit while the wall was in darkness. Then on a trip to Portland I also took a picture of a vintage girl walking across the street, again she was in direct sunlight while the background was in darkness. Thirdly I was on a trip to Governor's Island and took my 50mm lens, which I hadn't used in the while, and on the way back took some pictures in Wall Street of the people leaving work. Again in bright sunlight but with the 50mm on f1.8 the backgrounds were not only dark but out of focus. These three events accumulated into 'Spotlight' a project which in retrospect I'd been building up to since I first started shooting Borough Market in 2010.

Close up portraits of stylish, interested and sometimes eccentric people, all in bright sunlight but with a dark and 'bokeh' background. It was incredibly challenging, I spent around 250 hours over the summer months in midtown attempting to capture the right people at the right time in the right light.

Not happy with making my project as difficult as possible I decided to add another element to it. For a long time I've heard that to get by in the photography business you need to also do video. I'm not really interested in making movies and so I had tried to think about what I would do if I were to make a video. When I thought about the process of getting these pictures and the outcome it was clear that no one would be able to understand the time and effort that goes into it, so why don't I use video?

The result was not only shooting for 2-3 hours a day in 100 degrees fahrenheit but also having a chest strap, stabilizing gimbal and Gopro filming all that time too. Editing was a challenge and I had to learn lots of new skills in Adobe Premier and edit the movie a couple of times to get it right; but the finished item was worth it.

I entered my series into the LensCulture Street Photography Awards and became a finalist, it was a great honour and really cemented my view that I am headed in the right direction.

After Spotlight finished in September I took a break but also used the time to think about where I could go next with my work. I didn't want to just stop doing my Spotlight series as I felt it was so different to most other street work out there, but I wanted a new angle. So I set up a new Instagram account and started throwing up all sorts of experiments with focal length, lighting and location. By the end of November I had 15 shots which represented a new  project using a wider angle lens but using the same lighting.

So what a year! Full of learning and new experiences. I’m going to be moving forward and trying to capitalise on those things that have edged my photography forward in 2016 and try and add a new dimension in 2017.

New York Spaceships

When you take a photo stood at the base of a skyscraper looking up and flip the photo 180 degrees; it looks like a Star Destroyer from Star Wars flying overhead. You also get a completely new perspective on buildings, the details, the scale and the textures are fascinating.

I took my first pictures in this ‘Spaceships’ project in London, 2011. I was working at IPC and their building has a very interesting shape and also fins all over it to regular heat and light. It looks like an abstract Sci-Fi mothership. I used to walk around it and into it every day and when I took a picture at its corner and flipped it the result was abstract, interesting and somehow epic. I took a few more pictures like it but left it at that.

Fast forward to New York 2016 and I’ve spent the summer shooting my Spotlight project and it has come to a close. The period of shift between major projects is hard, you kind of feel lost for a while. You know you needed to stop what you are doing but you don’t know what to do next. I’ve dealt with this by picking up small ‘throwaway’ projects that I’ve been meaning to do. Things like my shots of New York City Foodcarts, or my Classic cars shots but something I had been meaning to pick up again was the Spaceships. I only did 5 pictures in London and they were picked up by a blog at the time, so this must have legs!

The great thing about these pictures is that the subjects don’t move, they are ambivalent about having their picture taken and really the only thing you need is the weather. Finding good subjects is an interesting task. Something that looks great from 3 blocks away can disappoint at it’s base while a wonky weird building you didn’t even notice can have a structure and texture that makes for a great shot.

I imagine that they are different types of spaceships. From small freighters to enormous cruisers that we see in the opening sequences of Star Wars. They can be straight up with clean beautiful lines but others can be jagged and be under construction making them look like battered old pirate ships.

It’s been like a palette cleanser, something I can do that shifts your focus enough for it to be a rest for your creative mind. The result is actually something a great deal more interesting, architecture photography in New York is quite a thing and I hope, with this project, to add a slightly different and new perspective to the buildings that make up this city.

You can see the rest of the ongoing project here

Roy DeCarava and me

What I love about Roy DeCarava’s work is that his pedigree in painting and printmaking is evident in his work through his use of light. He understood print and ink and how that can be used on paper to convey light. His works are geometric, use bright foreground lights and at other times very dark with only minimal details. This shows an understanding of how this will be represented on the final print of the image, he is thinking about the end result as he is shooting the picture.

His work of jazz musicians is striking and grabs the light with both hands to use it in the most inventive was possible. He represents his subjects in silhouette with harsh lights behind them, he is creating a screen printed poster of an artist just as much as he is creating a photograph. His composition is already thinking about typography, even though none appears.

And yet in other shots he uses the light in it’s most minimal way possible, just capturing enough to show you the scene and nothing more; the players are sinking into darkness.

His subway shots can be dark and foreboding, same with his street portraits of Harlem. People peek out of shadows and barely reveal themselves.

Another aspect I love is his approach of concentrating the meaning and visual language into a wonderfully tight, rich image. This is not a documentary photographer showing you life and how it really is. This is an image maker telling a story with just about the right amount of light, in just the right place to inform, leaving the rest of the space to sit in luxurious, thick darkness. Sometimes street photographers criticise shallow depth of field images as out of context with the street and not honestly showing the reality. It’s clear that Roy DeCarava would have dismissed that as nothing to do with what makes a great image.

After shooting a summer of work with people in the spotlight, I’m draw to this approach, looking at the darkness and also looking into dark spaces where people are. Isolation and quiet are where my camera is being led at the moment.

As the nights draw in I’m drawn to shooting at dusk and only using the lights of the city to create images that allow people to sit within the darkness. I’m currently experimenting with the silhouettes that the setting sun creates, the doorways where people stop and storefronts which boom light out onto the dark street.

It’s a completely different time and space to where I have been for the past 6 months but the result should hopefully be a continuation of where I’ve been with similar themes, it’s interesting how something so different can also be the same.

Spotlight 1 - a street photography video

For a very long time I’ve had an idea for a video based on my street photography. When I shoot I always listen to music, often electronic, so the streets have their own soundtrack.  

When you watch street photography videos online they are usually made by two people, a street photographer and someone following them shooting the action. I didn’t want to do this because I shoot alone and also I wanted the video from my point of view.

I started experimenting late last year but found it technically difficult because of the shaky movement you get when you walk. I tried to clip a Go Pro to my bag and hold it tight with my left hand while I shoot with my right but it got in the way, it was simply too much to think about. What I needed was a system I could completely forget about. I went looking for something that would keep the camera steady but I could strap to myself and film without getting in the way of my stills camera.

Eventually I discovered the Feiyu Tech FY-WG 3-Axis Wearable Gimbal which I bought and promptly bricked trying to update the firmware. After returning it to China and getting it fixed I bought a chest strap and started walking the streets with it.

The difference between filming with it and without it is night and day. While it certainly isn’t perfect it lets me shoot without worrying about the footage I’m going to get. It’s a pretty fragile piece of kit and is easily sent into a tail spin but for the price it does the job beautifully.

Editing was very much trial and error. In early trails my edits were far too long. I wanted to evoke the busy sprawling chaos of Midtown. Fast cuts set to music allowed me to cherry pick the moments when something interesting happened and unusual people came into view. Initially when I cut to the photograph I held it for much longer. Cyndi suggested that they should be shorter and also cut back to the person walking past me. This not only gave the image context but it allowed you to see their reaction as they left the frame.

I’m very happy with the result. It’s exactly as I imagined when I came up with the idea over two years ago in London. It’s a great addition to my Spotlight series and I hope it gives people an insight into what I’m doing and how I capture my images.

You can see Spotlight here

Bruce Davidson and me

Bruce Davidson’s series on the New York Subway in the 70’s is spectacular, I really wish I’d discovered it sooner…

I always consider when I started shooting people on the London Underground to be the single most important moment in my photography. Up until that point I had been taking pictures of Borough Market and general street work. The shot of the girl in headphones on the Victoria Line forever changed the way I shot people and brought be directly to where I am now, so it’s amazing that I had never came across Bruce Davidson’s Subway series.

Shot in the 1970’s when the New York Subway was covered in graffiti and was a significantly more dangerous place to travel, his work is visceral and exciting and you feel genuinely scared for his well being. Reading the introduction to his book and listening to him talk you realise that it was through his calm and measured manner that he achieved the shots he did.

Most of the time he asked permission before he took a picture, showing them a wedding album full of prints, with only odd occasions where he would shoot before speaking to them. Even then, he would speak to them afterwards and explain what his project was about. Travelling long distances, and often during the night, it’s amazing he only got mugged a couple of times, and even that didn’t put him off.

It raises two issues for me. Firstly, my desire to shoot on the Subway myself. How can I bring something different when this iconic work has clearly achieved everything it set out to do with the Subway of the 1970’s? Today it is a very different place. Dramatically cleaned up, it is a much safer place to be, so finding an angle on how to represent it would be a challenge.

Secondly, it poses the question - would I change my approach? I currently shoot on the streets of New York while I listen to music and never speak to the people I take pictures of. On the bustling streets this isn’t an issue but on the small crowded subway cars I really don’t know if this is an approach I can take.

It’s been something I have considered for a long time. There is even a course at ICP about street portraiture which tackles the issues regarding approaching people and asking to take their picture. I’ve always thought that the way I shoot is deeply ingrained in who I am, my work, and the comment I’m making, so to turn that on it’s head is scary.