Reflections on Street Photography
My aim this week was to create a story around the idea of ‘reflections’.
I spent much of this week working in Central London and found myself combining the reflections theme with street photography. When I looked over my images, they fell into three groups.
- Semi-abstract reflection images.
- Candid street photographs that didn’t have any reflections (although I was shooting to a theme, I couldn’t stop myself).
- A combination of candid street photographs and reflections.
I thought the combination told the best story, so that’s what I’m presenting here. It turned out that photographing people’s reflections was a great way to get some candid street portraits, since no-one seemed to realise I was photographing them. I just looked like a crazy person.
Here are my favourites from the week. If you want to see an example of the other street photos, check my Instagram feed.
I shot several images through glass windows. I liked the abstract combination of the two worlds.
I’m not sure if this person was taking a selfie or if he was just curious about what I was photographing and decided to follow suit.
This person definitely thought I was crazy, taking a picture of a sign with opening times on it. I have a string of pictures where he’s looking at me as if I’m mad.
There’s a preference amongst street photographers to present their images in black and white. I did try a black and white look for these images but because the reflections have low brightness contrast, it’s sometimes hard to make out the two ‘worlds’: the subject and the reflection.
This shop window had a number of mirrors and was like photographing through a prism.
This night shot is another example of where I think colour really adds to the mood of the image.
Only in London can I perch myself two inches above a puddle with a camera in my hand and get totally ignored.
This woman was totally absorbed in a phone call so I had time to arrange the composition as a symmetrical reflection.
When you start looking, you begin to realise how many mirror-like surfaces there are in the world.
This is photo story 5/52. More details about this project.
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