Cuba Colour

Cuba is a stand out location for street photography - everywhere you look there are colourfully dressed people standing by colourful buildings, which they often match so well you could almost think they had been professionally placed by an artist.

Even the sea seems to compliment the colours worn

and I love this blue and white combination

The stalls at the farmers market look colourful too.

Despite my love of colour I am going to end this final post about our Cuban adventures with a couple of desaturated pictures. Why? because I like these particular images better like that, and I wanted to include them! Enjoy!

Saturday at Spitalfields

Last Saturday I attended a street photography workshop at Photography Course London. The practical part of the day took place at Spitalfields, one of the places to be in London on a Saturday. We were asked to pick a theme and I started off with couples

I began quite well taking a wide view of what might constitute a couple - could be either friends, lovers or friends of the four legged variety.

Then I got kind of distracted by things or people I just found interesting

not normally a huge fan of back an white but this lady came already colour co-ordinated making it a no brainer!

I was also hugely attracted by people who were dressed slightly unusually or doing something out of the ordinary and really couldn't resist these fabulous ladies

or these guys

But back to the challenge, couples! A bit later I saw some different couples some of whose members were canine, like this pampered pooch here who travelled her own cushion.

But this was my absolute favourite couple

That's all folks, join me back in Italy next time!

Street Photography the Hows, Whys and Wherefores?

Last Thursday I went on a street photography workshop run by Photography Course London - it was fab. The day started with a review of the history of street photography and some tips on staying safe and legal - then we were out on the street!

Luke the tutor gave us lots of hints and tips and succeeded in making me see things / people / places in a different way. In particular, I began to notice things I just wouldn't have noticed before, like people's faces lighting up as they entered little patches of sunlight.

This guy was beautifully framed by the shadow

We also looked at the possibility of developing series of images - I saw an awful lot of people with mobiles!

Another possible theme was people through steamy windows - I took a few, this was one of my favourites

And this one with the legs - had a bit of a play in Photoshop here too

Some pictures have more of a story than others

and I wonder where people's journeys will take them?

In amongst taking all the photographs I have been pondering the ethical issues of street photography. Should you ask permission? I have sometimes, but the downside can be that subjects may start to pose rather than look natural. Most of the photos I took on Thursday were of subjects walking towards me. Sometimes they were aware I was taking their picture, sometimes not, it certainly didn't seem appropriate to stop them in their tracks and ask them if they minded. Maybe intention is a key issue? Is there any intention to exploit in any way? absolutely not! The final question I asked myself was would I mind if someone took photos of me and put them on their blog? I really don't think I would unless the photos seemed disrespectful in some way , which I hope none of mine are. Anyway I'm going for it!