I’m currently scanning some photos for a friend of mine who doesn’t have a scanner for photographs. The photos are from about 30 years ago when she travelled extensively throughout the world. 

As a photographer, I am conscious of stories and trying to capture and convey stories that unfold in front of me. Working through my friend’s slides, her story is starting to unfold to me. I am finding this a very interesting process and am seeing what she saw when she travelled to places I haven’t been. 

I am also conscious that, as I predominately take photos of architecture and landscapes (both urban and rural), the photos I take give a window to others of what I see, how I see the world around me and places I have been. 

Whether the viewer has been to places I have been can influence how they see the photos I show. They can invoke memories, curiosity of places they haven’t been and perhaps be challenging. 

I am also very aware that I live in a city with a lot of history. I work near Tower Bridge and across the river from the Tower of London, and am close to Borough Market. 

I enjoy photographing all of these sites. When I am in the mood to people watch, Borough Market provides ample opportunity and an interesting back drop. People mingling, the smell of food and the stalls enticing people to buy. Even if you have been before, there are always things to look at and photos to

For ages, I have been wanting to wander through Brixton on a weekend to capture it when its market is in full swing. I managed to find some time a couple of weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon.

As I imagined, it was a bustling place with people mingling, buying things and going about their business. It could have been anywhere, but also feels very distinctly London.

I feel very fortunate to live in a very diverse and interesting city. Its stories unveil before me – some I managed to photograph, and some I miss. Many histories live side by side. Some shout, some whisper and many are somewhere in between. Some inspire us, some challenge us. However, there are there to be seen, if we choose to see them.

I enjoyed my afternoon in Brixton, however brief, and want to go back again to discover more of its stories. 

Walking through Crystal Palace Park in London in between rain showers, I was enjoying the spring flowers before they fade away before summer starts. I enjoy walking through parks after a shower. The freshness of the plants and the air is often intoxicating.

I don’t consider myself a floral photographer, but I am often drawn to taking photos of them. I enjoy the symmetry, geometry and colour of plants and flowers. Some architects are influence by the symmetry and geometry in nature, like Gaudi.

It is easy to pigeon hole photographers into one subject or another. However, the reality is most photographers take photos of a number of subjects. I recently went to a David Bailey exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery recently. Bailey is known for his portraits of famous people but I found his personal work – taking photos of indigenous people – equally, if not more, interesting.

What drew me to the flowers in Crystal Palace Park while I walked through it was the added layer of the rain drops on the flowers. I don’t often take more macro photos, but I am finding myself taking more close up images of flowers in particular. The detail, symmetry and colour are interesting and can be lost without taking images of flowers close up.

Below is a sample of the images I took. 

After months of grey and cold, spring begins by peeping through the slumber of winter and gently awakening the earth before summer. As spring begins to bloom, people often reflect the change in season by having a bit more spring in their steps.

Seasons have their own energy and character. Spring is about waking up, beginning to grow and an increase in energy. Life is beginning to sprout again.

I find springtime a treat. While I enjoy the winter light and the shadows it offers, spring brings longer days, a lighter step and a different type of light. Spring also brings flowers.

Plants and flowers manage to sprout from almost anywhere. While walking to and through Crystal Palace Park, I was spoiled for choice for photographing flowers. Below are the results. 

A friend of mine died recently. She lived a long and happy life, but had been unwell in recent years.

From time to time, I enjoy photographing a cemetery. It may sound morbid, but there is such rich history, architectural gems and I find that the birth, life and death are all present in one place. This is particularly the case in some of the cemeteries in London.

While cemeteries are a focal point to remember those who have passed away, they are also an expression in tangible terms of humanity’s act of remembering the dead. Styles change, and it’s interesting to see this. However, the act is pretty much the same.

Cemeteries also are places that I find very peaceful – places where I find my creativity and contemplation often mix.

Below are some photos I took last year in the Beckenham cemetery in South London. 

Being a large city, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle in London. It’s the nature of a large city. Sometimes it can be exciting, and other times it can be overwhelming.

This energy of London offers many opportunities, but also challenges. As a primarily architectural photography, trying to get photos of buildings without people can be difficult, if not impossible, at times. Knowing times when areas were a bit quieter certainly helped, but some areas are busy all the time.

An empty street, particularly in black and white, can be powerful and interesting. In the exhibition I was in last year, I exhibited a number of street scenes that were empty as I wanted to explore how, in some areas, regeneration meant redeveloping existing buildings (like old dock buildings) into apartments or keeping existing features of a building.

It was really interesting to hear people what people saw in my photos and their narratives of them when I spoke to them. It really made me appreciate the narratives of my own photos and my journey with my creativity. What was quite striking, however, was how many people commented on how my photos didn’t have people in them – they seemed to be missing something. When selecting my photos, I was steered away from including people as it was thought my photos, but I was starting to feel uncomfortable with this approach. I had tried so hard over the years to exclude people from my photos, but I think subconsciously, I was shifting away from this.

That’s not to say that I won’t include people in my photos. However, I am starting to enjoy including people in my narrative. It gives context to my images and to my narrative as well as something altogether human. Buildings are a product of humanity, but people like to see themselves reflected in the images and narrative too.

Below are some images I have taken recently in London. While they are still very much architectural, it also shows how both people and the built environment interact with each other. It can range from something very simple and mundane like waiting for a train to being entertained in Covent Garden or Victoria train station. 

I recently bought a small, film camera. It was an impromptu purchase, and wasn’t entirely sure what I would use it for. I suspect I initially bought the camera to satisfy my geeky side.

As I mentioned in my last previous post, I have started exploring the relationship between architecture and people. My primary focus in my photography is architecture and the urban landscape, but I am increasingly interested in the relationship between people and the built environment.

Living in London, exploring this can be much easier, particularly in central London. There are so many people about – whether they are Londoners or visitors. That said, it isn’t always easy to take photos of people. I am not trying to be prying or intrude into people’s lives nor do I want people to pose. What I am after is placing people in an environment and for them to act naturally.

Trying to do this isn’t easy. In a way, it’s a bit of a double edge sword. Taking photos on something like a smart phone, people often don’t take any notice. They have come more commonplace. However, nicer cameras more often get noticed.

What this little camera I bought has done is to allow me to take photos without feeling like I am intruding on people’s space. Also, it is building my confidence in photographing people again. At the moment, it is a stepping stone to perhaps using better cameras in taking photos with people, as well as a tool in my kit.

Below are some of the photos I have taken recently. The weather in London has been rather nice, and the people have been outside enjoying it. There is a sense of pausing, and of enjoying the weather. 

Spring in London has come at last, at least for now, and has stayed a week or so. It’s amazing how much sunny and warm weather has in uplifting people’s spirits and moods.

One of my favourite places to people watch and photograph is along the South Bank in London. It can be very busy on the weekend, but well worth it for photographs.

I try not to be intrusive when I take my photographs, but increasingly I am including people in my photographs. My primary focus is on the architecture around me, but the interaction of people and architecture can be interesting. People also give context to the architecture, and vice versa.

Today, a friend and I walked along the South Bank. I have included my photos below. 

What draws me to photography? There are a number of things, and I am sure that it has changed over the years.

When I first started taking photos, I wanted to photograph the show jumping shows I went to. At university, I still took photos of show jumping, I shifted focus a little to street and photojournalistic photography. I also started to develop my own black and white film. I continued my street and photojournalistic photography when I came to London. Within a few years, I shifted to architecture photography as I became tired of either being told off or people playing to the camera.

Over the last year or so, I have been trying to figure out where my photography is going. While I am on the journey, what I am really tapping into my photography is the narrative. So, what do I mean by this?

The exhibition I was in during November 2013, much of the feedback that I received was people seeing their own stories and narratives within the photos I was exhibiting. I found it fascinating what people saw in the images – often things I hadn’t seen myself, or personal stories they had.

The images I showed were architectural, and so it wasn’t perhaps the most obvious subject matter to have narratives. What I found was that it invoked either people knowing the areas I took the images in and it provoked some memories or feelings of the area or it reminded people of other places they knew. The narratives were place based.

Seeing the narrative, and allowing the viewer to read their own narrative, has become more important in my photography.

I sometimes come across stories of areas, graffiti, etc after the fact. One good example is the graffiti image I took in Islington. It was a man standing by a utility box on the street. A number of months later, while reading the metro at Waverley train station in Edinburgh, I found out that the image was of the cleaner who removed some graffiti (Graffiti artist paints image of cleaner removing artwork). I appreciated the story behind the image, but for me, my narrative of the image was an office worker pausing while heading back to the office during his lunch hour. 

Art can be many things. Sometimes it can make a political or social point, as with the Hahn/Cock sculpture in Trafalgar Square in central London. The sculpture is by German artist Katharina Fritsch. The giant blue cock is pointing out the predominantly male statues in Trafalgar Square. However, I think it’s not just Trafalgar Square that has this issue.

What art has the potential to do is to become a social commentary on the world around us. While my photography may not be as making such a blatant point Fritsch’s cock, in its own, sometimes subtle way, it’s a commentary of the world I see around me.

Whether it’s architecture, landscape or street photography, it’s a snapshot of what I see and is very much rooted in where I am, who and what I see and when. I have found that I have started merging the architecture and street photography a little as I have started including people in some of the photography. For many years, I shied away from taking photos of people as I had grown tired of being told off for taking a photo of someone.

However, I am starting to find ways to include people. People can often give context, but including people also mean that the architectural shots are less austere or harsh. It doesn’t mean I have started including people in all of my photos – it depends on the photo. It just means I don’t shy away from it.

The social and political statements I am making in my photos are perhaps more subtle as they reveal everyday life. The feedback I really found useful and insightful from the exhibition I was in last November was when non-photographers who visited the exhibition were able to find their own stories and narratives in my photography and were relating to my images in their own way. Speaking with them allowed me to see my photographs in a different light and gave the new insight.

I am perhaps starting to see my photography as a narrative – the narrative of the world I see around me.