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On this blog post, I'm sharing a different set of moments to the travel photos I shared on my Instagram post - this time, these memories are from my home city, London. Still the same feeling, just a different place, and the moment as I remember it.
It was never about the perfect shot. I don't think I've ever really believed in those. What I'm after is the flicker. You know, that split second where something ordinary suddenly isn't. A reflection in a window. A stranger mid-laugh. The light hitting a street I've walked a thousand times, as if I'm seeing it for the first time. Every image I've ever kept started with that little flicker catching my eye in a way I found impossible to ignore.
It's why I chase streets and places the way I do. Step into a city you've never been to and everything's turned up, the smell of bread baking somewhere close by, the tinkle of coffee cups and spoons clinking together like some kind of Italian orchestra, a snatch of a language you don't speak, whole stories passing across a stranger's face before you've worked out a word of what they're saying, colour that feels louder just because it's unfamiliar. Nothing's dulled by routine yet, so the flicker finds you constantly instead of the other way around. And, in London, there's a comfort, a familiarity. I'm not a stranger here, not decoding a city, not guessing at everything from scratch. I already know a little of the small print, so I tend to notice smaller things instead.
Taken through the window of one carriage into the next - the space packed, people standing shoulder to shoulder. Then I noticed this couple. First frame (above): just the two of them, looking at each other in the middle of it all. Seconds later, second frame (below): he'd moved in, and she kissed him on the cheek. A whole tender moment happening in a crowded carriage, unnoticed by everyone else on that train. To me felt like a movie scene moment and still does.
There's a longer story to this one. But, for me, this photograph (below) sums up everything I love about street photography, the fact that a moment so small, so fleeting, so ordinary to everyone else on that platform, could hold so much tenderness and beauty. It reminds me that you don't need grand scenes or dramatic light to find something meaningful. Sometimes it's just a hand, a touch, a second of connection between two strangers you'll never know anything else about. That's the magic of this genre for me. It's always there, waiting to be noticed.
It was a mild autumn morning. Coffee going cold in my hand. I was just watching, the way you do as a street photographer. Then the street blurred into motion of people waiting to cross a busy road, but the light found her, looking up through the crowd, and for just a second. It was perfect.
There was a guy who came to the same café every week - same seat, outside, same order of espresso. "love" on one hand, "amen" on the other. Whenever I was out shooting at a weekend, I'd see him - one day I just stood next to him quietly, we never spoke, and I never photographed his face, only his hands. Then he stopped coming. I never saw him again. I still think about him sometimes - the tattoos said more than a face ever could.
#Why I still do this
What I care about is holding onto how a moment felt - the mood of a street on a wet Tuesday, that split-second where a stranger stops posing and just becomes themselves, the version of a person that only shows up for an instant before they notice you're looking.
Happy World Photography Day, Lucy x
