Photography challenges in Camden, London - From The Book “52 Street Photography Assignments”
At the weekend, I went on my first live, in person photo challenge ‘meet up’ since the lockdowns started. Lissie Dyke runs these sessions and had to take them online during the past two years. So it was a real pleasure to get back into the field with her, so to speak. The format of her group is that she chooses a location in London and brings along a few challenges. One of the group will pick a slip of paper randomly from the bag and that becomes the first challenge. Everyone will separate to put their own individual spin on the challenge and we’ll then meet again in around 20 or 30 minutes to repeat the process again. The session will last around two hours with a trip to a cafe or pub afterwards to discuss how we got on and to show photos. It’s always interesting to see how each person interpreted the brief and to see the locations they chose.
This recent meet up took place in Camden, meeting at the busy Camden Town tube station. We never know what the challenges will be in advance so it’s a mystery until the paper slip comes out of the bag. Lissie is very good at creating her own challenges but for this session she was working from a book called “52 Street Photography Assignments” by Brian Lloyd Duckett. I’ve included the link to it on Amazon (I don’t receive any commission). I don’t try my hand at street photography very often but as you’ll know from my previous blogs I love to experiment and I like to try and get to know as many types of photography as possible.
You can read this blog in one of two ways. Either as a non photographer, getting a view of life near the Camden markets on a Saturday morning. Or as a photographer, an inside look at how I got on with the challenges from this particular book.
Assignment 1 - Sign of the Times
The first challenge was titled “Sign of the Times” and the brief was to find a sign that made an odd fit with something beside it. The example in the book is a photo of a sign “Absurd Bird” with a pigeon sitting on top of it. For good or bad I decided to stick with the first sign I saw which was a shop sign “Skinny Dip”. I had the idea of catching someone skinny walking past in a stylish way. Ha - easier said than done. I’d heard so many times that a lot of street photographers will pick a spot and then wait for the right person/s to walk into the frame. I picked a spot on a traffic island where I was safe from the traffic. Then I framed the shop in the way I wanted and set my focus on the point where I wanted to capture someone for maximum effect, against a white pillar in between two shop entrances. Then I waited - for half an hour. This was a lesson in patience! After around 20 minutes my arm and back were starting to ache from being frozen tensely in one position. I had absolutely no luck. Lessons learned!
Lesson 1. Don’t choose somewhere so busy. People were coming in and out of the shop regularly and the pavements were crowded at some points.
Lesson 2. Don’t pick somewhere with a road between you and your preferred spot. Although the traffic wasn’t so busy, it did interrupt my view when a double decker went by.
Lesson 3. Don’t choose somewhere so socially popular. Camden is a place where people will often come in a group or with family, especially on a Saturday. So the chances of spotting a lone walker are very reduced. However, I did manage over the course of the half hour to capture a few on their own.
I’m drawn to colour so part way through I really gave up on finding something amusing and I liked the effect of people passing by in clothes that were in some toning colours to the sign. I wasn’t lucky enough to find anyone dressed head to toe in pink/lilac. That was too much to hope for in thirty minutes. Maybe if I’d stayed all day!
Still, I always think that the most powerful lessons come from failures because of an aversion to repeating the mistakes. Now I know what not to do, it’ll make it easier to get this type of photography right when I try it in future. I plan to find somewhere with strong colours and shapes, with no traffic in the way, in an environment where people are likely to walk alone and, this is probably most important, find a stable place to put my camera and use my phone as a remote trigger to cut out the problem of aching arms after a short period.
The one that got away? That was a tall, skinny teenager with a stylish look, wearing a pink/lilac hoodie which toned well with the shop sign. Unfortunately, he was with a group of friends, in the midst of a crowded pavement and I think there was traffic passing by as well just to ruin any remaining chances.
Assignment 2 - No Finder
The second assignment sounded absolutely bonkers but turned out to be a lot more fun than the first. It was titled “No Finder” and the brief was to shoot without looking at the viewfinder or the screen. You also had to shoot in manual focus and hold the camera low or at arms length. Lately, I’ve been taking a lot of shots where I spend ages setting up and really spending a lot of time on one capture. So, this sounded completely off the wall. The photographers using this technique are known for ‘edgy’ shots as you might imagine. I set my camera into manual mode, f10, ISO 200 and focal length of 24mm. I then left those settings in place as I walked around, only occasionally changing the focal length between 24 -70mm if I thought it needed it. As opposed to standing in one place and focussing on one scene this half hour was surprisingly enjoyable and freeing, just shooting randomly and wondering what on earth the results would be. In a couple of instances if I thought it was a good subject, such as the red tattered leather chair, that’s when I changed the focal length just guessing where it should be. Because of the fixed ISO, and the fact that I was walking in shadow within the market and in bright sunlight on the streets, a lot of the images were too light or too dark. So if I’ve shown these photos here I’ve adjusted the lighting to make them properly visible.
The photos above have been posted in the order they were taken. I didn’t try to group them in any way in line with the spirit of the assignment.
The one that got away? I have no idea! I just used this as a random exercise, although I was trying to aim for interesting subjects.
If you’re interested in photographers who have used this technique then have a look at Marc Cohen, William Klein or Daido Moriyama. It’s not a style of photography that I would want to adopt wholesale but they do have a lot of really interesting captures and are great for sparking ideas that would fit with my style.
Assignment 3 - Be Negative
The third assignment was more thoughtful. It was titled “Be Negative” and the requirement was to take photos with a lot of negative space. So, the subject would take up a small part of the image and the rest would be pattern, sky or a single colour. This exercise produced my better images of the day (in my opinion) and was a lot more suited to me. My immediate thought was to use the sky but I then went on to find different types of background. Again we spent under 30 minutes on this so there wasn’t a lot of time for planning.
My first shot was of the sky as the negative space with a street lamp and tree as the anchor. I liked the snowy effect of the cloud at the foot of the image so I gave it a colour wash which, for me, exagerrated the Narnia feel.
The next was a chair with tree shadows in sunlight. I love the way the silver birch tree trunk breaks up the man made glass and brick and the different effects of the tree shadows on the brick and glass as well. I was able to take this chair and place it as I wanted against the brick wall. There were people sitting nearby but nobody bats an eyelid at much in Camden. They will probably just be thinking “another photography project”. I really can’t decide which was my favourite of the day. Is it this one or the Narnia tree and sky? At different times of day I might say either.
The next one was of a mooring spot alongside the canal. There’s a nice expanse of almost black from the water contrasting with the small bright yellow dot.
Next, staying alongside the canal is the ripple left behind by a diving duck. I think that’s about as much of a negative space as you can get. The duck was there and now it’s not ha ha!
And lastly, a very summery image, considering this was at the end of February. The link between land and sky and some beautiful cloud which might just be alto strato cirrus. Feel free to correct me. My job as part of the weather team was to record the clouds every day - in primary school - and that was a long time ago.
I follow a minimalistic page on Instagram. It’s called Minimal Mood and you can see it here for fabulous examples of negative space. Another Instagram account I follow is Marcus. His shots are stunning in their simplicity and he adds a funny quote each time he posts one. You can see his account here.
If you’d like to join Lissie’s London photo scavenger hunts, you can join her group by contacting her by email ellisabethannedyke@gmail.com.
My heart goes out to everyone in Ukraine, whose normal life has been suspended. I can’t say how much I hope for a swift victory for such brave people and an end to the war and devastation.
Loren x