street photography

All change

/ mikeosbornphoto / 12 Comments

TCR sign

If you wanted to visit London’s Soho district and the shopping thoroughfare of Oxford Street, you would stop off at Tottenham Court Road station. I’ve used it countless times. In recent years, the station and its neighbourhood have undergone radical change to prepare for the Crossrail scheme, designed to improve the city’s hard-pressed transport system.

The Central and Northern Line Tube station is now spruced up and more spacious than before. It has a modern and industrial feel, with bold, simple graphic designs. The entrance and exits are light, stark temples of glass, while you’ll find the newest Tube signs here.

But change comes at a price – the exits have been repositioned, and emerging from one I was seriously disorientated. The loss of a number of buildings and this new hub means that the familiar old station is no more than a vestige of the past.

This was also the first workout for my new Fuji XF 18-135mm zoom lens, which brought features closer and seemed to beef up my shooting power.

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The Photo Shop

The islanders

/ mikeosbornphoto / 14 Comments

The island of Sri Lanka is a country of great natural beauty. But it also bristles with life and people, particularly in its bustling cities and towns. During my recent trip, I found my camera turning towards its people. Some of them I met and asked to take their photographs, sending them copies of their portraits when I returned home.

There was Lala, a pleasant, polite man who showed me the local village and Mr Silva the sarong seller who looks careworn in his picture, but waved and smiled at me after our encounter. I didn’t meet the lady in white seen on Kandy’s main street – but she seemed to gaze straight into the lens.

Other Sri Lankans were observed and captured from a greater distance, while there was no shortage of street and crowd scenes on a busy festival day in Kandy. Sri Lanka also boasts a wide variety of animal life, from cheeky monkeys to a docile cow who watched the sunset on the beach and then lumbered away. Faces become even more fascinating when they’re less familiar…

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The Photo Shop

Human interest

/ mikeosbornphoto / 4 Comments

Ilias

This photograph made me pause for thought. It is my Greek friend Ilias, taken on a city walk around Hoxton. I’d imagined taking a picture of him, and this was it. I happily gave a little direction to make it happen, and it was part of the process of photography.

It made me think of my self-confessed fear of people and portraits. But looking back over my archive, it becomes clear that this problem doesn’t really exist. I’ve captured a fair few people, some in plain sight and others while I simply observed them from afar. Perhaps I feel safer with the solid majesty of buildings or objects in the control of my studio space. But humans are interesting – and sometimes need not be feared.

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The Photo Shop

Shoreditch streets

/ mikeosbornphoto / 14 Comments

Shoreditch

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.

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The Photo Shop

Dorando Close

/ mikeosbornphoto / 10 Comments

Dorando building

The red scarfThis is an apparently unremarkable little road in White City, west London. I cross it every morning on my way to work. 

But I notice it each time I pass.

One side of Dorando Close is filled with the modern, sandy bricks of an office block and its three stories of windows.

The perspective is impressive and catches my eye every day, while a neat line of trees enhance and complement the sense of understated grandeur of the building.

But this is a community, with a bustling little supermarket just around the corner, a school opposite and BBC buildings close by.

It’s a place of people too.

The lady wearing the red hijab walked into shot as she went about her business, adding a daub of colour – and humanity – to the bland yet eye-catching building on this little London street.

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