A few weekends ago I did something I still can’t believe: I spent just over 40 hours shooting in London with no sleep. I know what you're thinking. Why?
Well, to be fair, more than a few friends have asked me why and all I can answer is, why not? Seeing the city of London change over the course of 2 days, going from being busy to empty, was amazing and gave me a real challenge and provided new opportunities to create different looking photos.
When the city is busy and packed with people, it’s hard to find new areas to shoot. However, take the people out of the equation and you start to find new and exciting opportunities in this city, and this includes areas that I shoot around way too much.
I had my only 2 cameras with me, the Ricoh GR2 and Fujifilm X-T2 & 56mm lens. I found myself shooting with the Ricoh during the daytime and the Fujifilm once the light had gone. I also spent a lot time shooting with the Ricoh’s built in flash and let me tell you, it was a lot of fun.
So in this two-part blog I will be sharing photos from both the Fuji and the Ricoh. Out of the 2 cameras the one that I felt more at ease with was the Ricoh as it didn’t feel as if the camera was getting in my way and it just allowed me to relax and shoot. When using the Fujifilm I had myself thinking way too much about the photo I was trying to capture. I tend to worry if the photo will be in focus or will I miss the shoot altogether, but all this worry goes away when I’ve got the Ricoh in my hand and this is for me very liberating. I feel as if I have more control of the moment with this camera, it allows me to get up close with my subject without disturbing the scene. However, I find at the night the Fujifilm is easier to shoot with; I’ve heard the GR3 is way better at night and I can’t wait to try one, fingers crossed I’m hoping to have one in hand for my trip to Edinburgh in January...
Anyway let’s get back to my 40 hours in London. The weekend started with a workshop and we spent most this workshop around Oxford Street shooting through many different types of windows. You never really think of Oxford Street for street photography as most street shooters will end up in Soho and Chinatown, but I enjoyed the variety of opportunities these glass frames gave us as people wound their ways through the electric streets. I would like to thank everyone that came on the workshop for a great day, we all had a blast.
After the workshop I met up with a YouTuber named Samuel Lintaro Hopf, who was there with Leo, another photographer. We had something to eat at Slim Chickens (god damn you Sean!) before heading back out onto the streets with Christian, Zack, Jovis, Terry, Rob, Fabian and Erdi - what a group of awesome people.
Zack, Christian and myself decided to try the winter wonderland in London’s Hyde Park. Now, both Zack and Christian seemed to enjoyed this, but I thought that it was hell on earth. I can’t begin to tell you how much I hated the place and, unsurprisingly, I didn’t stay for long. At this point I met up with a young Russian photographer Vladimir. This young man was the only photographer mad enough to spend the night out shooting with me and I can’t thank him enough for the awesome company. Being out with Vladimir made the night go past fast, we never got bored and there was so much to shoot.
As the early morning came round I got a message from Christian asking if I wanted to meet him back in Hyde Park as there might be swimmers swimming in the Serpentine as part of one of England’s oldest swimming clubs. If I’m honest I did think that this was going to be a waste of time as it was freezing and I didn’t believe that anyone would be that crazy, but boy was I wrong. Joined again by both Samuel and Leo, we headed tentatively down towards the swimming club.
Just as we got there both myself and Leo saw a sublime swimmer emerging and we thought we’d missed our moment, however that wasn’t to be the case as more and more swimmers came out for the morning dip in the ice cold water.
The members of the club were so friendly and they didn’t mind us taking photos, they even tried to convince us to join them, but that wasn’t going to happen, to bloody cold and I’m crazy, but not that crazy. We all ended up getting some interesting photos before we parted ways, Vladimir went home for some much needed sleep and both Samuel and Leo headed off to record a video for his YouTube channel. Myself and Christian went for food before heading to speakers corner, here we met up with Zack, speakers corner is fantastic for street photography the energy from the speakers is good to watch. I hadn’t been here to shoot for about a year and I’ll say now I enjoyed myself no end. We also met up with another 2 photographers Hiroshi and Selaru. I’d been following Hiroshi for a while now and I really enjoy his street work, I hope to shoot with him more.
After a long walk down Oxford street, I’d decided it was time for me to call it a day, so I said my goodbyes and headed off towards Stratford for the coach home, of course, I was still shooting and I didn’t stop until I was on the coach.
It was an amazing weekend of meeting new and old friends and of course, the being awake for 40 hours, the 40 hours awake isn’t something I’d want to repeat anytime soon but, I will do this again at some point. No matter how tired I was by the end of the 40 hours I felt it was all worthwhile and I had a blast.
There are lots I could’ve written about but I’m willing to beat you stopped reading ages ago lol and if you are still reading at this point thank you and I hope you enjoy the first lot of photos. Check back next week for the second part of this blog.
