Last week, I took a day off from work to meet my friend Gavin for some street photography in London. We both recently bought some hipster film cameras and wanted to have a play… His camera is a lot sexier than mine but I’m stingy and didn’t want to spend a lot of money. So it was my Olympus mju-II vs. his fancy Contax t2. We both also brought or digital cameras – Sony vs. Fuji because who can afford to shoot film for fun all day?!
Before I met met with Gavin, I made a quick stop at Carnaby to have a look at the “Notes to Strangers” installation at the Diesel store. I’ve been following Andy aka Notes to Strangers for a while now, after hearing him talk about his project on a podcast. Andy is an artist and writes sometimes clever, sometimes funny, sometimes provocative notes that he puts up in London for others to find and enjoy. I love his notes and seeing so many of them in one place really made me happy.
Because Gavin wanted to shoot somewhere less touristy (so not Southbank for a change), we decided to have a look at the Barbican Centre. We ended up strolling around the brutalist concrete area for hours and hours and loved it so much that we didn’t end up going anywhere else.
The thing about the Barbican Centre is that it’s not very busy – you don’t see a lot of people walking about. So shooting with a wide-ish lens means that everyone in the photos is usually far away. The photos I took that day look a lot different from what I shoot on the street most days. I’m still not entirely sure how much I like the photos I ended up with but that’s ok. I guess doubting my own work is part of the process, right?!
After the sun set, we had a little mooch around King’s Cross station before heading home. And while waiting for my train, I attempted a bit of underground street photography. I think I might try more of that some time…
As mentioned, I had my new film camera with me – the main reason I went to London. I will post some of those photos soon – once I get them back from the lab and find out whether there is anything useful in the mix.
In the meantime, I would encourage you to have a look at Gavin’s Instagram account – it’s real good.