One Day Shooting Street in London

On Monday 5^th August I was invited to London to shoot street with a bunch of fellow Leica street photographers who use the M System.

The meet was organised by Gavin Mills and Jay Burleson and it included photographers from as far away as the US and India and, of course, Scotland.

I’ve shot in London quite a few times over the last two years but the big difference this time was I had a bunch of people that took me off the beaten track. Normally I would shoot for an hour or so if I was down there on business and that tends to be around the touristy areas such as Covent Gardens, Soho and Chinatown. On Monday I was taken to parts of London (around The Borough) that I had never seen before let alone be let loose in with a camera. The people were different… less “obvious” and much more natural. The people were Londoners.

Having local knowledge of the area you’re shooting in and being with other photographers gives you distinct advantages; a different perspective and more confidence. Both of these things you need in buckets for street photography.

The other thing I noticed was that I was shooting less than I normally would in say a place like Glasgow. This might have been down to the fact that I had people with me and we talked a lot, or that I was shooting film and was firing ‘silver bullets’. But I think it was also down to the people I was shooting with. Most of them live in London, so their street shooting opportunities are vast and varied as oppose to where I live. I live in a small town which I have covered extensively and when I go to Glasgow or Perth for a shoot, I’m only there for a couple of hours and try to make the most of it by firing the trigger three or four times a minute. But in London on Monday I seemed to be taking my time. I came back up on the plane with 150 odd shots spread between film and digital and edited them down to only 45 keepers. Two hours in Glasgow would normally net me 100 shots and maybe 20 keepers. So I learned a lesson… slow down – shoot less – get more keepers.

I’m a gear head, so naturally, the other great part of the day was getting a look at all the different Leica kit that was present. M9’s, M8’s, Monochrom’s, the new 50mm Summicron APO, a 90mm Summicron (which was superb) and a 1.25x viewfinder magnifier which allowed me to focus so much better that I ordered one immediately on my return.

I was the only person that brought a film camera – I brought my Monochrom too, but shot 50% of the day on film. I’m new to film and still find it challenging as I really don’t know much about it and my M3 is 100% manual… no light meter, no aperture priority. I’m still not able to look at light and guess the exposure settings off the top of my head so I spent a lot of the day pointing my iPhone with it’s light meter app in the direction of where I was walking so I could get the correct shutter speed.

So, we shot from 10am till 4pm and we all agreed we had had a unique day and a great time and promised to sort out at least another two or three days shooting together every year.

Below is a video of some of my keepers and a selection of shots from the other guys.