Don your bad boy trousers...

 

 

The latest London Street Photography Meetup had us all lurking around the London Film and Comic Con exhibition in Olympia stalking superheroes, sci-fi characters and random furries.

 

 

 

We had two challenges today. Firstly, we were to capture some candid shots in the steamy streets (full marks for such a copious amount of plush, latex and lycra in that heat). The hope was to grab an snap of Superman nipping out of telephone box, leaving the toilet or at repose eating a sandwich.

 

 

Our second challenge was to enquire if any of the shy and retiring convention attendees would pose for some portraits for us. I'd found a good bit of dark fence on the way to the main entrance to act as a backdrop. They leapt at the opportunity to be thoroughly papped!

 

 

 

I must admit there were only a couple of outfits I could immediately identify, but had to admire the commitment to their chosen theme. The lady in the elegant black and white striped dress and the awesome handbag was at pains to point out that this wasn't a costume, this was her normal day wear. Impressive!

 

 

Quite a few of our intrepid Streettogs felt the long arm of the law, or actually, high-vis jacketed security today, they didn't approve of our photography. Did I mention how enthusiastic the convention attendees were about being admired for their extreme outfit efforts and pose for us? Hmmmm, a crime indeed!

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Losing our heads

This was my 30th London Street Photography Meetup with Polly and it was a proper challenge. Firstly we are not accustomed to such fine weather at a Meetup, so were sweltering as we stalked our likely subjects.

 

 

The Anonymous in the East End Meetup consisted of two challenges (or three, if we count the fact we're on another market situated Meetup). Firstly, face-replace - where the face is substituted by another object, often with almost facial features. I loved the inspirational images Polly showed us, especially the guy with the underground station clock for a face, (Bob Mazzer) but struggled to shoot anything in a similar vein I liked. I will revisit that theme though on another day and eventually will capture a photo of that ilk I'm proud of.

The second challenge of our Anonymous in the East End, was cutting off our subjects to lose their heads, thankfully slightly less frustrating.

 

I'm not entirely sure I didn't lose my own head today, a demanding theme and phew, what a scorcher!

 

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Peering up petticoats

Today's London Street Photography Meetup theme was Eye Spy in Petticoat Lane. We had to pick five themes at random from a few Polly had selected - human evidence (like the end of the world Meetups), frames within a frame, patterns, matching clothes and face in the crowd.

 

 

 

As mentioned previously, I can find a street market quite challenging, so of today's elements I definitely favour the street photography devoid of humans in the empty streets near the market. And then when we hit the crowded streets, the frame within a frame.

 

 

 

 

Though I do like a pattern, so will play around with that theme again.

 

 

The matching clothes was a new challenge, perhaps we could capture people passing each other in similar outfits, or someone hanging near a stall sporting a similar style to what's on display. The easiest option seemed to be stake put the jeans stall.

 

 

 

 

I flip-flopped between monochrome and colour but I decided that colour helps me make more sense of the cacophony of the street market, so abandoned my customary B&W

 

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Man vs Architecture vs Bubbles vs Sausage Dog

Today we return to one of my favourite London Street Photography Meetup themes - Man vs. Architecture and this time, in and around King's Cross. I'm immediately so much more in my comfort mode, especially after being rather overwhelmed at Portobello Road Market last week.

 

I love this theme because the man element is a silhouette, a shadow and figure to give context and scale to the architecture. It seems so less "street" and confrontational than other street photography, and I can look for the leading lines, popping colours, negative space and shapes that I am drawn to.

 

 

To mix it up, we firstly had the extra dimension of shooting up from below, or down onto the below, from above. There's a mezzanine level at King's Cross which lends itself perfectly to this challenge, and a few of our group opted to descend the escalator and take up residence there. Including Darren, who continued with his great tradition of inciting security guards by taking photographs somewhere they feel he shouldn't, and then being thrown out of the place. He can add King's Cross to his long list now!

 

 

Secondly we were to frame our subjects in some form, possibly architecturally. I opted to frame my 'men' in the shark tooth edges of the enormous, sometimes blue, tree-like canopy of the station roof, stripes of light in the underground tunnel or within a bubble.

 

I'd been unaware of the tunnel before (I've since learnt it was open two years ago) and even though it causes my Q's EVF to strobe in an extraordinarily freaky way, I just couldn't get enough of giant ever-changing multicoloured barcode.

 

 

 

 

As we strode down towards Granary Square I thought I'd explore the viewing platform that I'd seen, but never climbed up. This seemed the perfect occasion, this is Man vs Architecture so you'd think it would add another dimension to that theme. However, I'm entirely perplexed as to its purpose. It's not very high, the buildings around are much taller and the fountains and general frivolity of Granary Square are too far away. I had to Google its raison d'être afterwards and I believe it's so we can peer into the large construction site below, I guess it's trying to best the perspex viewing windows set at various heights into some other sites. But I really don't get it. I recall we looked at it with interest when we attempted (and pretty much failed) to view the Lumiere festival activities around King's Cross, perhaps that little bit of extra height would have helped us. But the fafillions of people who turned up for that event was ill have most definitely precluded entry to this recommissioned storage container.

 

 

And, on top of everything else, I noticed randomly there seemed to be rather a lot of sausage dogs out and about, I couldn't resist one's startled expression!

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