From my recent stay in London, one of my favourite places for street photography, obviously a bigger city makes for more opportunities to get good street shots. Though I have had one or two, or three good ones from my Home town of Hull in East Yorkshire, but I just love the vibe in big Cities, I kind of feed off the energy of it all. I saw this homeless guy begging in Central London, I know there’s many hustlers and chancers who spin a yarn but this guy seemed genuine to me, if not he puts far more work into it than whatever he gets from it! I watched him for a while from a distance and was incredulous to see some people blatantly filming him on their phones like he was some kind of tourist attraction! I was thinking how to approach it and decided to just show just his feet and the sign, which was all that was needed really. I did talk with him and asked if I could get him anything, he asked for a hot chocolate drink, I got him one and left a few quid for him too. In the words of … “When I see a man like this sat in a shop doorway cold and freezing. There’s no way I’m going to walk past him without making a statement” – Don McCullin. Only he was talking about Whitechapel in the 70’s, this is from central London in August, 2023!
This one, below, is a bar worker taking a break in Soho. The reluctant poser, she didn’t want me to capture her image and I had to give her some chat to let me take it. I couldn’t let it go, loved the colours going on here, reminded me of a classic painting, she had a real cigarette too, it's usually all vaping now. I had planned to have a wander around Soho and before I went came across this book ‘London after dark’ by Geoffrey Fletcher, which had a chapter on Soho, it’s a great read full of gems about all the old haunts and its characters, with some fantastic full page illustrations. I took it as a good omen, confirming my idea. Over 4 days I took approx 30 images, and will use less than half that. Though I save them all, I find editing as in choosing work to show is a skill in itself. Check out my instagram page @ streetshootertim for the rest. Btw, Geoffrey Fletcher is the guy who also wrote ‘The London nobody knows’ which was made into a short film, narrated by James Mason.
