Working, as I do, in the middle of London, one of the world’s most vibrant and varied cities, it theoretically doesn’t take much for me to get some interesting photos. All I should need to do is bring my camera to work, and then go for a walk at lunchtime.
It isn’t always that simple. For a start I’m obviously limited to somewhere I can get to and back from within an hour, allowing time for shooting. That’s difficult. I often shoot excessively to see what comes out which means I like to not have time constraints – not to mention I obviously also need to eat at some point during that hour. Then, of course, there is always the luck of the light with whatever you’re trying to photograph..
Sometimes, however, it all comes together. Last Friday two friends from work and I (Catherine and Simon – the same two who, for anyone with a long enough memory, I went along with to attend the International Paralympic Day celebrations) headed down to Borough Market. Catherine (curator of CJ Trigg Photography, linked to the right) had already spent a small amount of time there experimenting with the photographic possibilities, so we decided to all go there and see what we could capture. Fortunately, we got a work-sanctioned pass, which also removed the time commitment.
For us, the idea was to resurrect our joint blog plan from last August, as well as have the opportunity to compare and contrast the different images we got from the same location.
As is often the case with this sort of trip, initially it can take a while for the self-consciousness of going somewhere with a camera and shooting abstract things to wear off. It doesn’t help, of course, when you show up as three people, each with SLRs, looking quite a bit like this:
Borough Market, for those who’ve never heard of it, is a mostly-covered market selling primarily food, with a few arts and crafts thrown in for good measure. We went relatively early – about 11am – in order to avoid the crush of the lunchtime rush.
We stuck roughly together as we wandered around the market, separating a little when we saw something worthy of a shot. Occasionally we all found ourselves in the same spot – at least once, we ended up all standing in the same square couple of feet of space to avoid the crowds, whilst pointing our cameras in three completely different directions.
That said, when we got back into the office and had a quick look through the photos, we all have some very similar shots to each other. Some of them border on identical (give or take the height difference).
Still, it was interesting to shoot somewhere else, and above all shoot images that are impressive but generic. I even managed to use all four of my lenses at one point or another.
Due to the nature of the subject and the photographs, I liken the results to the Sights and Sounds of London Town post from two months ago, and as a result have put these images into the gallery format.
If you like these, check out Catherine’s shots on CJ Trigg Photography. Simon’s shots have been mixed with ours and posted on our shared blog, CSR Photography.
