February 2021 - Southwark - London Underground
A friend and I started a project last year, to take a series of photos showing off the London Underground. Obviously, we didn’t get very far before COVID-19 caused us to stop – but we did have two trips in February and early March. Doing a project like this is not always easy – in my case it was quite out of my comfort zone as I have only very limited experience of taking art photographs indoors.
We started off with our first trip in February and went to a group of stations in a sort of ring around Waterloo – quite a big ring, we went to London Bridge and Bank, to Westminster and Southwark – and looked forward to a lot more of these trips. Hmmm – misplaced optimism sadly.
A couple of things struck me as we went round that day: firstly, that the photos that work would largely be of diagonal lines and recurring patterns, and secondly that many of the pictures would do best in black and white. This photo – taken, I think, at Southwark – shows the first characteristic (although I have also shown a mono version in competitions) and seems to have a huge number of lines and patterns to keep you interested and drawn in. The most obvious lines are the yellow ones on the floor, but the blue panels on the wall add another pair of diagonals which make our eyes look deeper into the background. The person walking towards me is really important: without them as a point of focus, you could easily get lost in the distance. Certainly, one version of this that I showed off to friends got heavy criticism because there was no central person in that version. And rightly so.
Another lesson I learned that day was that I needn’t be frightened of taking photos with people walking around in them. In our two trips we only once had any comment from someone – and that was from a rather officious member of station staff saying that we weren’t allowed to take photos in the underground – absolutely not true, as the London Underground’s own website makes clear! Street photography, or any photography in public where there are people you don’t know getting into your photos can be a bit stressful … and I learned that I really needn’t worry so much.