Last Time Out.
Waterloo, London. Feb 2020.
Fuji X-T3 25mm f2.8 1/500 sec
Whilst it also removes many freedoms, life in lockdown gives us plenty of opportunities. When have we ever had the luxury of Time that Covid19 has afforded us? Time to consider things in a far less hurried way.
“...every image seems to have become tainted by the virus...”
Without new photos to edit, many street photographers have gone back through their older images to find that precious nugget that was possibly missed last time round. Or the B List photos that never quite saw the light of the Instagram day. I haven’t quite reached there yet – but it’s on the horizon.
I postponed looking at the images from my last street photography walk for longer than usual because I knew that once I did, then that was it. No new street photos to edit for the foreseeable future.
Ride Or Stride. City of London. Feb 2020.
Fuji X-T3 26mm f2.8 1/500 sec
Week 3 of lockdown saw me take the plunge. I usually wait a week or longer if I can before editing anyway. It’s good practise, enabling me to see the images as they really are. Not subjectively.
Images that I work hard to take become invested in so much unnecessary weight because of the time spent trying to make them work or just to catch them in the first place. A week or two usually alleviates this nagging tug and I can look at them with less emotional attachment. This was now six weeks later, nearly seven. I’d done well.
“Times have changed and photos taken less than fifty days ago have already become historic images.”
What has happened this time is that every image seems to have become tainted by the virus, or at least by the lockdown situation. It’s hard to view a crowded street in the same way as it was when it was shot; or a tube train, crammed like sardines, without an element of judgement; or even a lone figure, without assuming they’re part of the isolation scenario, when actually it was just a quiet underpass.
Of course we read too much into those images with the short sighted lens of history which we are already wearing. Times have changed and photos taken less than fifty days ago have already become historic images. They speak of the past. It’s not a distant past and hopefully we will return to many of those freedoms that we took for granted sooner rather then later. But what will have changed?
One Last Time. Paternoster Square, London. Feb 2020.
Fuji X-T3 55mm f2.8 1/500 sec
For those of you who are interested in kit, gear and where and when, these images were all shot on the Fuji X-T3 with the red badged 16-55mm lens. This is not my usual lens choice. My “go to” lens is the 23mm f1.4 which I love for its clarity and the focal length (equivalent to 35mm full frame) seems to fit about the right amount of street into the image. It allows me to get close and it forces me to get close, if that’s not a contradiction. This time, however, I chose the 16-55mm zoom.
“It’s always good to mix things up.”
One reason for this choice was that I had wanted to try some images in the city where I could experiment with contracting the scene which I knew the longer focal length would allow. Secondly, I was not specifically on a photowalk. I wasn’t out for the whole day but was going to meet up with some other photographers and see the exhibition My London hosted by 3 Street Gallery featuring the work of Brandon Wong, Craig Whitehead, Joshua K Jackson, Josh Edgoose, Mavis CW, Mark Fearnley, Mo Barzegar, Sean Tucker and Shane Taylor. The longer lens, if it proved too heavy or somehow inappropriate, would be only for a relatively short time on my walk to and from the exhibition. It’s always good to mix things up.
The Last Coffee. City of London. Feb 2020
Fuji X-T3 55mm f7 1/500 sec
For those of you who know these streets, my route took me from Waterloo along the Southbank to the National Theatre and over Blackfriars Bridge, up to St Pauls and Paternoster Square, then up through the backsides of The City to Broadgate, and back to Waterloo via Bank.
Orange. The South Bank, London. Feb 2020.
Fuji X-T3 55mm f7 1/500 sec