Little bits of…

August 29, 2016August 28, 2016 / mikeosbornphoto / 9 Comments

I really like to seek out details to photograph, often more than the bigger picture and grand vistas. They can be tucked away doorways, windows that are so familiar they’re ignored. I’ve visited a number of places with my camera, and have looked back over my photo archive for some of those smaller, more ordinary items. It’s anything from a line of washing on the roof of a bland building in Cape Verde to a neat beach hut on the East Anglian coast. Enjoy the significance of these little bits…

Click first image to see collection

: Abu Dhabi

: Budapest

: Cape Verde

: Dungeness

: Sweden

: Hunstanton

: Norwich

: Olympic Park, London

: Sri Lanka

: Shoreditch

: Budapest

: Oostende

: Whitley Bay

: Woolwich

: Regent’s Canal

Towers of the east

December 13, 2015 / mikeosbornphoto / 15 Comments

When you stroll around the fashionable London districts of Hoxton and Shoreditch, you tend to look straight ahead to spot bijou little shops, high-class eateries – and hipsters sporting beards.

But this part of the city has more than its fair share of high-rise buildings, from very modern glass-clad affairs to the concrete bunkers from the 1960s. Futuristic or retro, these tall edifices are bursting with perspective. So if you pay a visit, take a few moments to stand still and look up.

Click first image to launch the gallery

Eastern lovelocks

November 29, 2015November 29, 2015 / mikeosbornphoto / 10 Comments

Hundreds of padlocks, attached to a strip of fence close to Shoreditch High Street rail station to the east of the city of London. This isn’t my first brush with lovelocks, permanent little emblems of relationships left in public places. Each lock tells a story – or at least hints at one – and are intriguing to take as individual, close-up photographs. A whole swathe of these brings delicious focusing to the fore and an explosion of colour.

As a contrast to the intimacy of the lovelocks, I took a photograph of the view from the fence – the urban grit of the Braithwaite Street tunnel and a host of pedestrians. Who knows, maybe a pair of them had snapped on a lock just minutes before…

Click first image to view the gallery

Urban vegetation

November 27, 2015November 26, 2015 / mikeosbornphoto / 4 Comments

In some parts of London, greenery appears hard to come by. On a recent photo walk around Shoreditch, this is the best I did – a scattering of autumn leaves on steps at Arnold Circus, a small park set at the confluence of several streets with a small bandstand at its centre. As this city crawls into winter, fall vegetation is becoming scarcer as it is cleared up and the trees grow bare.

Not so for this upstanding pair of trees I found in the business area near Liverpool Street station, guarding a chunky office block. They look like fish out of water, trying to bring a glimmer of nature to a natureless place…

Shoreditch streets

November 22, 2015 / mikeosbornphoto / 14 Comments

The London district of Shoreditch is just a stone’s throw away from the city’s business district. It’s become synonymous with being achingly trendy, packed with cool bars, shops and eateries. It’s the home of the Cereal Killer Cafe which serves nothing but a bewildering array of boxed breakfast delights. The demographic is young and hip, with beards and man buns a-plenty.

So I made the journey from staid west London to prowl the streets of Shoreditch with my camera. It’s urban with some rough edges and a lot of graffiti art, but has a lot of sumptuous little shops and places to eat. The vibrant facades and store fronts caught my eye, along with details of architecture. It was easy to capture people as they went about their business.

There’s a lot of see and absorb in a small area. I’d thoroughly recommend a photo walk – keep your eyes peeled.