This young man was in Kennington Park in south London while I was taking a lunch break there and I enjoyed this shot as it came through, the moment in which he is facing in one direction while looking in another, as if a momentary consideration of different directions. Nicely framed by the large tree behind (the leaves make it appear to be a London Plane tree, but an exceptionally gnarled one if so). This was shot with the wonderful RX100 VII compact, although the monochrone from that camera can be very bright and highly contrasted, so I evened out that effect here a little in post.
One of two shots here taken from a short walk with my brother in December 2022. In fact it was Xmas Eve and there was a holiday feel as many people visited the very lovely Langland Bay in Swansea. This has been a favourite shot of mine and when I think about why, it is down to the space and dynamics of the people. The distribution works well to convey the idea of the multitude of stories and their presence, perhaps it also has a painterly aspect to it in compositional terms. I am aware that the kite is a key component, bringing action that lifts the human aspect and centers the image around its presence.
Visiting Cardiff in the autumn, the skaters were out and about in the Railway Station square. Unfortunately, I forgot at the time, the contract of the action street photographer (maybe I am making this up) to offer to share the shots with their subjects. As such, I hope they find this, the best shot of a small sample size. The friend really makes the shot, with his smile towards the camera, making my ommission doubly unfortunate (but probably also came at the time from a lack of time and confidence that any worthwhile shots would be taken).
This is the 2nd shot from Langland Bay a couple of Decembers ago which caught my attention for a few reasons. There were stunning sun rays through the clouds on that day which made for some lovely shots in their own right. But there was something about how these two women were suddenly in their own space, composing their own shots – but esconced before the sun and sky in a composition themselves (which I was lucky enough to catch). It occured while I was balancing the colour a little that the shot could be cropped in a little to bring the central figures into greater focus, but the way the wide angle gives us more of the space, the humans to the side but more significantly, beyond them – the land – is important for the composition. The sun is overexposed, but I also like how it provides a kind of magnitude to the force that was setting off the sky.
I particularly like the drama of this scene. We don’t often see the night-time operation of road laying. There is something inherently dramatic about it, an opera of lights, power and the ingredients of incredible durability. Not to mention the number of operatives, shrouded in smoke and that pungent tarry smell. As such I was pleased to catch this while cycling home one night, where one of the heavy A roads of east London was being re-surfaced. Originally in colour and taken on the compact Sony (with its smaller sensor) I ran it through a modicum of noise reduction but more crucially switched it to monochrome (which I haven’t much felt the need to do) and immediately it became a more powerful composition. At the same time, I reduced some of the light bloom – reducing some of the overt smokiness of the scene and properly centering our lead operative – at the sharp end of the operation.
This shot was taken at the Tate Modern in London in January, visiting an exhibition of visual work and photography called Capturing the Moment. Despite coming across some excellent work, the exhibition (featuring mostly back catalogue Tate items and costing £20+ to enter) was somehow disappointing, although good to come across quotes such as this:
‘Reality can only be shown by constructing it‘
Andreas Gursky (artist and photographer)
In fact, the preponderance of the writing that went along with the exhibition seemed about challenging ‘the gallery space’ as well as the edges of art conceptually – yet failed to ignite any theoretical plane between some of these brilliant artists and their work. Any real emergent or built subversion (even of the real itself) in the curation and its narratives seemed frittered and acceded. In the end, perhaps my best response to these pieces of work and their individual and myriad capacities was to take this photo from the exhibition, out through the window, catching with some remant strangeness a kind of self-reflection at the same time (or one partly implied, built from the shades).
The walls beyond the window reflecting back into the space adds to the scene.
This was taken in June in Leyton’s Jubilee Park. It’s another that could be cropped in, but I enjoy the framing and the banded distribution of human action, sandwiched between concrete and foliaged sky, framed around our beer drinking watcher (himself being watched). There is enough rhythm and space to the humans and their group distributions to bring that sense of action and intent.
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reflectivewavelengths 