Ever since my last trip to London at the tail end of last year, I’ve been desperate to go back up and do some nighttime street shooting. I’ve been finding myself drawn more and more to this type of photography, but so often I am out and about wandering around the same few streets, shooting in roughly the same places time and time again. It’s fine doing that, there’s always a new composition that draws the eye, or a change in an old one, but after a while you do long for something…different. And so a trip to London on a February evening was the change I needed. It was also an opportunity to give my new Peak Design backpack a proper test run. Since I bought it, it has certainly ticked one box (being convenient for packing camera gear for our flight to Spain), but I’d not really tested it out properly for a whole day out. And with future overseas trips currently being mulled over (although I am still 50/50 on one plan I’ve been mulling), I wanted to put it through its paces.
So I made a plan a few weeks ago to head up on the 25th February. No particular reason (other than it being after payday), but I did want to get up there before the nights got shorter and the days longer. Nightfall at around 5/6pm seems perfect for a quick trip up and getting home at a reasonable hour. I also knew exactly where to head…Soho and Chinatown - with neon lights and interesting windows aplenty.
I planned the day carefully, with the first priority being to catch a train with 12 coaches rather than 6 (six gets way too crowded and I’m still conscious of distancing). Luckily, the first 12 coach train got me to London at a decent time ahead of sunset. Unfortunately, I also discovered that the service was finishing earlier than normal that evening, meaning I had to catch a 2207 train home. Worse still, the train got me to London the same time as the West Ham game ended (I made a schoolboy error forgetting to check the fixtures), leading to a fair amoung of (ergh) West Ham fans heading to the tube station at the exact time I arrived. Ah well, so much for careful planning. At least I wasn’t wearing anything indicating I am a Spurs fan…
Upon arrival at Stratford I headed to the tube stations and jumped on the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road and made my way along Shaftesbury Avenue towards Wardour Street, a place I’ve been to before (I was originally heading here alone so wanted to make sure I stayed in an area I was familiar with) and knew of a few decent opportunities to capture some interesting shots of the city at night. Of course, it being a Saturday, it was absolutely rammed, which made it quite difficult to isolate people and (as London often can be) it was a bit overwhelming at first. However, once I started to slow down and look around me, opportunities started to present themselves. One of the first places that really stood out was an amazing cake shop called L’ETO that seemed designed for passing photographers with it’s big windows and fantastic, very tempting display of cakes. Needless to say, I spent quite a long time there shooting people mulling over the cakes (although sadly I did not buy any cakes).
33mm, f1.4, 1/500, ISO160
33mm, f1.4, 1/250, ISO160
Up until this point, however, I hadn’t really spotted many of the shots that I like to go for in the evening. I’m always drawn to the more abstract shots, silhouettes, condensation, anything that lends itself to photos that aren’t just standard captures of people on the streets. I wasn’t having much luck on Wardour Street at this time (it was around 6:30pm at this stage, so still quite early). So after a bit more of a scout around Wardour Street, I headed back down to meet a friend and on into Chinatown to see what I could find.
33mm, f1.4, 1/250, ISO1250
Needless to say, Chinatown was heaving. So, again, it was quite tricky to find interesting shots with simple or interesting compositions. Gradually, as the evening wore on, those opportunities did start to present themselves and I was able to take advantage of the condensation building up on the windows as the temperature outside dropped and the temperature inside rose. It was still tricky to find shots that I was really pleased with, but I at least came away with one or two shots that were something close to what I was hoping to capture.
33mm, f1.4, 1/250, ISO160
33mm, f1.4, 1/125, ISO400
It wasn’t just finding the compositions I was having difficulty with though. It was also proving difficult to handle some of the lights in the windows. I seemed to frequently get the problem of strobing across the image with certain lights in bar/restaurant/shop windows. Often times fiddling around with the shutter speed seems to do the job (I normally shoot at f1.4, 1/250 or 1/125 with around -1 to -2 expo comp), but I don’t often like to touch that as below a certain level I run the risk of not capturing sharp images due to the movement of the subjects. Nonetheless, it is a bit of a drag when I think I’ve got a shot only to find black bars running across the image.
26mm f1.5 1/35s ISO400 (iphone)
Whilst I am drawn to photos of people behind windows covered in condensation or silhouettes, this also presents its own problems. It’s not always easy to nail focus, particularly shooting at f1.4. The autofocus doesn’t really get on well because it’ll try to focus on the window and the condensation itself, which I don’t always want. Sometimes it’s perfect because I’m not fussed about the people behind the glass being in focus, it’s that which can make the shot. But sometimes I do want to get the figure behind the glass in focus, it all really depends on the subject. And I guess that’s the thing, if I often don’t know which I want to focus on, how on earth would the autofocus? So those times where I do want to focus on the figures behind the glass, I have to switch to manually focusing on the subject. Which then takes time and I can sometimes lose the shot whilst I’m fiddling with the focus ring. But still, you have to accept not every photo will come out perfect and you just need to “focus” on the ones that were successful and try to learn from them.
After a good walk around Chinatown and some very tasty bao at Bun House, we headed back towards Wardour Street for one last look before making our way back to St Pancras via a couple of bars en route. At this point I hadn’t felt I’d really got much I was truly happy with. I put that largely down to the crowds. Of course, in such a busy area of the city on a Saturday evening, there is always going to be a lot of people around and it can be difficult to spot opportunities amongst the noise and the hustle and bustle. I’ve gotten used to shooting at night in Canterbury where, even on a busy night, you have some time and space to look for shots. Nevertheless, it’s all about the challenge and the change in scenery and overall I was feeling that it was a good opportunity to challenge myself a bit and try to get some shots.
Just as I was mulling over my evening as I headed back to St Pancras, I looked across the road and saw one of those opportunities I’m so often drawn to. A pub, with misted up windows and lots of bright lights inside. Checking my watch and the train time, I had about five minutes spare…so we dashed across the road and I set about working as quickly as I could to get some shots of the silhouettes in the bar. At first, nothing special…then, as if they knew I was waiting for it, someone got up close to the window and BAM! I got the shot. Happy with this forutuitous spot on the way to the station, I hurried my way through St Pancras and onto the train. Even the disco in my carriage and the person smoking across the aisle (on the train!) couldn’t dent my mood. Maybe there were no bangers, but I got myself out into a different environment and got myself some shots. And the backpack did an exceptional job too. I guess I need to start planning for that overseas trip…
33mm, f1.4, 1/250, ISO640
