“Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who stop to consider the antithesis; that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.” Primo Levi
Little Beggars: Hyde Park London
Lancaster to London
“When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon
It rained all morning the day I took the 2 1/2 hour train ride from Lancaster to London. It was a high-speed train, and it swayed from side to side as the scenery whizzed by in both sides of my peripheral vision. Reading seemed impossible. In fact, avoiding motion sickness seemed impossible. So I occupied myself snapping shots out the window. Most of my results came out as blurry as expected, but I was quite pleased with some of the shots. The way the water played on the window, and the blurry, vibrant whisps of countryside and rail stations captured by chance, seem to pay proper tribute to my anticipation of adventures to come.
American Warewolf in London
I’ve been to Europe 3 times now and every time, I’m reminded of my first photography hero, the late Henri Cartier-Bresson who is considered the father of modern journalism and a master of candid photography. He was the author of The Decisive Moment and helped start the “street photography” movement.
Back when I started getting my portfolio together with the idea of applying to art school in mind, I found myself trying to make images like Cartier-Bresson and a slew of other bystander photography or street photography greats like Brassai, Robert Doisneau, Joel Meyerowitz, and Gary Winogrand just to name a few. My all time favorite photographer in this category is Robert Frank, originally from Switzerland. He took an outsider’s point of view on post-war America with his famous photo book, The Americans. The book was initially refused publication in the US because of it’s skeptical depiction of Americans.
On this trip, I was the outsider, and I couldn’t resist the urge to try my hand at street photography again. Travel always brings that out in me. Here are some of my results from Lancaster and London.
