Coming out of the Photographers’ Gallery I was encouraged by the light ahead. As I squatted down to fish a camera out of my bag I noticed something moving in the distance – a thumb on a film advance lever. It’s funny how things like that stand out in a crowd and I shouldn’t really be surprised when another photographer also spots the light, especially near the Photographers’ Gallery.
As I started to get up, the thumb turned, to reveal Matt Stuart. Ha! I don’t often meet people I know when strolling around London but towards the end of an enjoyable wander with Matt we also ran into Stephen McLaren.
Anyway, back to the light. That junction has six roads branching off making for a relatively large open space that often seems to have a fair amount of reflected light. I can’t think of any good pictures that I’ve taken there but I like this one that Jawed took with a battered 6×9 folder of mine. Maybe it’s a place where I should spend more time shooting but often I’m happy to just look.
Here’s what Matt was looking at (from a different position with a longer lens). The man with the blank green sign was promoting McDonalds but only if you approached him from behind. It did look strange, running at 50% effeciency, but I had to wonder if blank signs were on the long list of things to avoid, with shop mannequins and homeless people. I was tempted to clone out the Selfridges text on the yellow bag to make another blank thing but it didn’t seem worth the effort and I settled for cloning some of the clipped highlights.
Typical. You wait for a street photographer for ages, and then three turn up at once.
Maybe the guy with the McDonalds sign was a performance artist, à la Mr Odd Erection.