“Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. The real schools should be the streets.”
Oscar Wilde
I’m a member of the RPS Southwest Region, and have just taken part in one of its events, a photowalk round my nearest city, Exeter. Although I quite often take photos with distant figures included, I have never really taken to the idea of street photography, but spurred on by a talk by the excellent Tom Langlands, I had a go, with mixed results. I don’t have the confidence to walk about with my big camera and long lens, so ended up using my phone as it felt less intrusive. It was an interesting exercise, but I don’t think it will become my chosen genre. You can judge for yourself from the galleries below – quite a few indecisive moments!
A lot of the people that caught my eye were hanging about waiting for something to happen. So that’s a sort of theme for many of the photos I came home with.
Dogs being ignored by their owners in favour of looking at a phone could be a whole subject in itself, but some people seemed to enjoy the companionship of their canine chums.
To finish, a last image:
After that, I’m afraid I reverted to type, scooting down to the boatyard to find peeling paint, knots and ropes which are much more my kind of subject!