A (sick) Day in the Life
I spent this week out on the streets of Soho and the South Bank practicing street photography and photojournalism. It was a great class, and one that I was really looking forward to, but just as I was surprised by how much I enjoyed working in the studio last week, I was equally surprised by how anxious I was trying to take stealth street photographs! I did get a few interesting shots in Soho (always a hotbed of interesting people and scenes!) on the first day of class, and found myself getting a bit more comfortable with it as the week progressed.
On Wednesdays, we have the day off from class to do an assignment on our own. This week, our assignment was to document our day in a photo essay, applying the basic structural elements we studied, like establishing shots, detail shots, relationship and portrait shots, while turning the camera on ourself. I went to bed Tuesday unclear about what my day would look like, but woke up with the horrible realization it was not going to look like much because I was sick. As in fever, sore throat, can't believe I have to get out of bed and go to Boots (the pharmacy), oh-dear-me I wore sweatpants in London, sick. I'd like to blame it entirely on some germs picked up on the Tube, but it's probably a combination of public transport, not enough vitamins/exercise and possibly a dose of too much fun. Needless to say, my photo essay was pretty boring...
I managed to make it to class Thursday and Friday despite the bug, and we ended the class with a field trip to Borough Market. Since I already managed to take loads of foodie photos there in June, this time I focused on "street portraits" of the vendors. One thing that I have learned through this whole course is that if you spend a whole day shooting and you come away with one or two shots you really like, it was a successful day. For as instantaneous as digital photography is, it requires an incredible amount of patience! Thankfully, a market like Borough gives you plenty of good excuses to chat with the vendors and ask if they wouldn't mind you poking around with your camera. Some people posed, others went right about with their work as if I wasn't there.
After being out and about so much with class, I am firmly rooted in the flat today in an effort to kick this bug once and for all. Thankfully, I kept my Netflix streaming account active, have plenty of tea and honey, and despite the actual heat wave that has hit London (it's nearly 90 today, though they have been calling it a heatwave once the temps reached 80...) my little garden flat is relatively cool. I feel confident that I will be in fine form to celebrate Bastille Day tomorrow and take on Portraiture on Monday!