Sam, I am: London Day 2: Photography Exhibits, Street Photography and Sore Feet.

Trafalgar Square

We started our second day with a quick jaunt to the Michael Hoppen Gallery (Michael Hoppen) in Holland Park to view their exhibit Outside Inside that explores the relationship between photography and botanical life, as well as photographs from Siân Davey’s new series The Garden. This is a small but interesting gallery in an area of London (residential London), we had never visited on our previous visits.

Our next stop was the 'Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence' at the Victoria and Albert Museum. One of its focuses was the work of British architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew. Tropical modernism developed against the backdrop of political unrest and decolonization struggles for Western Africa (Information on the Exhibit Curation). It was good to see long overdue recognition on the contributions of the African architects who worked with Fry and Drew celebrated in the exhibition (Turner 2023). This exhibition combined with Ernest Cole's "House of Bondage" presented information regarding aspects of African History in an insight medium and definiely illustrated that pictures convey more than words.

Day 2 Route

Our next stop was to be the Serpentine Gallery; alas it was closed as they were changing exhibits and the next one would be opening on the day we left for Madrid. Next up was a quick visit to National Potrait Gallery and Geoff teaching me street photography in Trafalgar Square.

Street photography is photography that records everyday life in a public place, at it's essence is candid photography of humanity. The setting enables the photographer to take candid pictures of strangers, often without their knowledge. Street Photography can be done anywhere and does not require people to be present in the photos. Some of the photos captured look better in black and white. The hardest thing for me was pushing through the uncomfortable feeling or creepiness that I was invading someone's privacy.

Despite traveling the tube a bit more than normal, we still managed slightly over 11 kilometres of walking. My feet could attest to that! I did learn a bit about street photograpy. What surprised me most was in crowded areas, people are often totally oblivious to you. I also realized I was doing street photography for years, just not on purpose. Hmm, I now wonder how often I was in street photography and didn't realize it!