Ten – London Photography School

I stood outside the Bishopsgate entrance of Liverpool Street station.  Every couple of minutes I glanced at my phone.  The organiser was going to email me with some information about the meeting point, but it was getting perilously close to the start time.  I decided to take my camera out of my bag and hung it around my neck.  I immediately felt conspicuous; I wasn’t used to wearing it.

I crossed the road and started to look for a group of people who were carrying expensive cameras.  I was starting to get worried: I thought of a ‘plan B’; my plan was to explore this bit of the city on my own and hopefully bump into one of the thirteen other meetup members who had paid to go on this expedition.

‘Excuse me… Are you Zara, by any chance?’ I asked someone who was man-handling what looked to be a very expensive lens.  I noticed that her camera was similar to mine, except it was the absurdly expensive professional version.

‘No, I’m not… are you a part of the group?’

I said I was.  Emma explained that the group had met outside a nearby Tesco supermarket where everyone was given an assignment.

‘We’ve got to take photographs of buildings, but we’ve got to take them in such a way that we give the impression of height and scale, perhaps showing them against other buildings, if you know what I mean? Have you set up your camera?’ I shook my head. ‘You’ve got to have a low ISO setting’

I had no idea what she was talking about.

‘I have no idea how to use my camera’ I confessed.  ‘This is my first time in this group; I’m a beginner’.  I had bought my camera a year ago and I didn’t know anything other than how to change a lens.

Emma motioned to me to give her my camera.  She started to press buttons.  ‘Ah, I see that you’ve already set it on monochrome; that’s good.  Have you set the picture format to RAW?’  I looked at Emma blankly.  ‘There’s a picture format that allows you to save both colour and black and white pictures at the same time.  It uses quite a lot of memory though.  How much memory have you got?’  I had no idea how much memory I had.  All I knew is that I had a big memory card.

‘What you’ve got to do is keep it on the P setting – that will be easiest for you’.

‘Is that the idiot’s mode?’

‘Not really, but it’s good enough for what we’ve got to do today’

‘Ah, okay.  So, we meet in half an hour, outside Tesco, right?’

Emma nodded.  After thanking her profusely, I crossed the road to start to take some photographs that hopefully conveyed something about ‘height’ or ‘scale’.  I looked up at the city skyline.  There was a lot up there, so this challenge didn’t seem too difficult, but I continued to feel incredibly self-conscious.

After taking about ten shots of diminishing quality, I ambled over to the Tesco.  I quickly found a group of around ten people who were carrying cameras that had the biggest lenses I had ever seen.  (Those must be ‘wide angle’ lenses, I thought to myself, trying to persuade myself that I knew something). I introduced myself to Zara, our tutor.  Zara was in her mid to late forties and had described herself as a published photographer.  I explained that Emma had helped me to get started.  Zara was softly spoken, but had a commanding presence.

‘Your next project is to concentrate on windows and reflections in windows.  We’re going to head over to Spitalfields market, where you’ll find some narrow streets and then a load of shops.  Look for people who are sitting in front of windows.  I’ll show you what I mean’.  Zara reached for her iPad.  The first picture of was of two men sitting inside a café, chatting.  Other pictures featured reflections and window displays, all were in black and white (which was the theme of the day). ‘The last project was about buildings.  This one is all about people.  People, windows and reflections.  We’ll meet back here in half an hour before doing the final project’.

It all sounded fiendishly simple.

After a couple of minutes battling for pavement space with twelve other photographers, I found myself on the perimeter of Spitalfields market.  I discovered shops, shops with big windows that had kaleidoscopic reflections and customers standing inside shops.  There was a gentleman’s clothing boutique, where the gentlemen sales assistants had fastidiously groomed moustaches.  Two women shop assistants were stood outside in the sunshine, wearing vintage nineteen thirties clothes.  I overheard a conversation about how the shop window cleaner had been insulting.

I could ‘see’ photographs everywhere, but the feeling of being conspicuous was impossible to shake off.  I remembered those instances where I have felt uncomfortable when strangers have taken my photograph whilst walking down the street: I wanted to know what the image would look like, why they image was taken, and how an image might be used.  There is a part of me that wants to control, or to own my own image, but this thought is ridiculous since in London we’re photographed continuously.  

I felt there was a power relation between the photographer and the subject; that a photographer can unilaterally ‘take’ from a subject. I felt that I should be asking for permission every time I took a photograph of people chatting at a café, but the process of asking kills the instant and obliterates the realism of the situations that you’re momentarily documenting.  I wasn’t the only one who found taking picture of people difficult; other students had similar thoughts and worries.

After about twenty minutes, I started to appreciate the time with my camera.  I was looking more.  I wasn’t just using my eyes and feet to navigate my way around the city; I was taking time to look for difference and beauty; beauty that was both accidental and planned.  It was helping me to explore my city more, to get to know it that little bit better.  I had been to Spitalfields market about twice before, and had always rushed through.  The camera made me slow down and to be more aware of my surroundings, to be less of a visitor passing through, and more of someone who was there to taste and to experience the richness of the streets of my city.

‘The final project is about place, and the role of people within that place.  I’m not asking you to take photographs of people, but I am asking you to take photographs which have people in them.  The idea is that because of where they are and what they’re doing, you can appreciate the environment.  And you can take photographs of the dilapidation that you see around you, concentrating on this block, and the one next to it.  If you’re not comfortable taking pictures of people, you can also carry on with what you were doing before perhaps taking photographs of people on buses if you want’. 

Zara again reached for her iPad and very briefly showed us a series of images.  Her photographs were compelling and mysterious.  A shape of a person walking up a flight of stairs or walking in front of a building quickly fires up my imagination: ‘What is that building? Who is that person? Why do they seem to be rushing?  What were they doing?’

We were stood just around the corner from Petticoat Lane which is famous for its market, but the streets were mostly deserted. ‘Although there are not many people around, if you wait, you’ll see people coming through’.

I started to slowly explore the streets, taking time to look around, at the architecture, at the structures.  I spotted what used to be an old factory down a side street.  At the top of the street was a new block of flats, a glass and steel structure which was very different from the brick built factory I could see in the distance.  I was surrounded by physical manifestations of history and change.

A photo I took just around the corner from Petticoat Lane. I clearly remember the disused factory and the empty early evening streets.

I found a bus stop, a little garden, an underground station, an empty Japanese restaurant, a busy intersection and a concrete brutalist-style housing estate that had obviously been built in the 1960s.  Rusty market stalls sat on the street, looking like skeletons, patiently awaiting the next market day.

Before meeting with everyone for the final time I popped into a pub and ordered half a pint of lager; all the walking about had tired me out.  The pub was quiet; most of its residents were outside in the beer garden enjoying the weather.  I downed the beer, thankful of the sustenance, and went outside to find my fellow photographers.

The final part of the Meetup was spent in a Brazilian café which was just around the corner from our last meeting point.  We were the only customers.  Some ordered food and beers and chatted; the idea was to try to take some photographs of a ‘café scene’, but it didn’t quite work: we were more interested in eating.  As we ate, I chatted with a fellow photographer called Amber; we spoke about confidence, the philosophy of interfering with situations and the fleeting nature of moments.

Zara encouraged us to share our best images with each other.  By the time I had returned home, someone had uploaded ten images.  The images were astonishing.  I saw a scene of Liverpool station; an image that had perspective, action, movement, different people, and breath taking sharpness.   It was a familiar scene that was beautifully composed.  The photographic subjects were clearly oblivious to the camera; two girls were walking away from the camera, and there was a man dressed in fashionable clothes toying with what appears to be a notebook.

An image that was taken by a fellow Meetuper;I have no idea who took it, but I think it is awesome.

This is the pic I wrote about.  Again, this is not mine! I love this pic;I wish I could be this talented. Taken just around the corner from Liverpool St. station