PHOTOGRAPHY|WRITING

Shooting London

Two photographs, one city

It’s been three years since COVID-19 made us rethink our relationship with loo roll. I still remember the initial confusion. Should we shake hands or not? Will we die if we do? That person coughing non-stop on the Tube, should we wrestle them to the ground and kick them out of the carriage? Or should we get off at the next stop and leg it as fast as possible?

The first photograph shows a deserted Long Acre, in Covent Garden, London’s West End. In those days I was teaching EFL( English as a Foreign Language) at an independent school in Waterloo. We were still allowed to go in and teach online. But students were told to stay behind in their residencies, or in the houses they shared with host families.

On this particular day, I finished work at lunchtime. I got on my bicycle and rode the short distance between Stamford Street and Long Acre. What greeted me in Covent Garden chilled me to the bones. This is an area in central London known for its liveliness. The souvenir-chasing tourists, the DMs-wearing outcasts, the ubiquitous homeless, the fun-seeking families, and many more tribes.

And this is just during the day.

I look at the photo now and think back to my first reaction on that day: we’re so fragile. We, humans. Despite our reason-defying technological advances, state-of-the-art weaponry, and perennial class system. We’re nothing but a speck of dust. The dust that seems to have been blown through Long Acre in the photo. When I saw the photo on my camera phone later on that evening I thought I was watching a still from a western. The scene where everyone rushes indoors because the “bad guy” comes into town.

Unfortunately, there was no sheriff to face him down this time.

The second photo was taken a few days ago on London Bridge, also in central London. I was commuting from north of the river to Borough, south of the Thames, every day, on my bike. It occurred to me that the crowds on London Bridge looked as if they’d just come out of an old British Pathé newsreel, RP-accented narrator included. I stopped my two-wheeler, whipped out my phone and pressed “click”.

The second image returns the hope I lost three years after that cycle-powered haunt up to Covent Garden. Even if the faces of those crossing the bridge did not always convey joy. Cost of living crisis and all that. It’s a photo of contrasts: the modern Shard, partially seen in the background, versus the sure-footed, forward-going but tradition-bound army of early-morning commuters.

Both photos were turned into black and white images whilst being edited. I’m a sucker for black and white photography. Although I don’t consider myself a photographer (at which point you, reader, may well be in your right to ask me: then, what the hell are you doing contributing to a photography-focused pub?) I do like using photos as part of my — chiefly — London-focused chronicles. In order to achieve this, I use two apps, VSCO and Snapseed. The former, I’ve used for many years. It’s as much a part of my writer’s arsenal as Google Docs, or Microsoft’s OneNote. I downloaded Snapseed recently when VSCO started charging for some of its former free functions.

Two photos, one city, three years apart. And still, here we are, humans. Fragile, but surviving.

You can buy me a coffee here.