It may officially be Spring and the sun may have started to shine with a little more conviction – but the choice of public events in my area is still somewhat limited. And so for this exercise I have chosen that great British pastime – shopping!
The following set of images attempts to capture the public’s engagement with the high street and its various activities. I feel that the Saul Leiter exhibition had a much more significant impact on me than I first thought – having been very committed to black and white, I now find myself irresistibly drawn to colour. Indeed the last 2 images are a definite nod to Leiter. I was thinking layers, reflections and distortions. The close up images are a little Bruce Gilden in style – but I confess they are shot ‘from the hip’ as opposed to ‘in the face’. One of the trickier things about the high street is its innate messiness – making backgrounds very hard to control. Much better to embrace it – so I have! Indeed the background itself becomes an integral feature of the photograph.
Jo's learning log 