In mid-October Britain it can seem like a relatively low level god is resentfully toying with a dimmer switch, daring it to break.
Sunshine
Cloud cloud
Sunshine
Cloud
Sunshine sunshine sunshine
Cloud cloud…
Before the switch breaks, the clocks go back, and we are plunged into seemingly eternal wintertime gloom.
There are more days when colour seems sucked from the world, when daylight hours are reducing, when there are sealed, coast-to-coast blankets of cloud and doggedly persistent rain. They can begin to weary the soul, particularly from January to March.
We must temper this with wider perspective. Ours is a relatively bland and undramatic climate, generally not vulnerable to hurricanes, earthquakes or volcanoes. Those are controlled by gods with greater powers. It wears and grinds at our properties and our minds more steadily, chipping and scraping away over time. This is Britain.
Of course there is still light and colour. As autumn progresses, light and colour become more fleeting, yet more precious and pleasing. When sunshine finally pierces through, colour appears doubly vivid and purposeful. Spirits can lift in direct and somewhat infuriating proportion. (Such simple humans). Hello again colour, diagonal shafts of light, contrast, shadow, life, hope.
This resurgence can revive the appeal of street photography. You can observe and immerse yourself, casually dabble and doodle with the light and colour and humanity, quietly celebrate the rebirth. For however long it lasts. It’s not totally unlike fishing, slightly creepy human fishing.
A couple of corkers escaped me on this day. Nearly but not quite belters where focus or framing was agonisingly botched. (I often shoot from the hip, guessily framing, wheeling a bike with the other hand: a dumbly imprecise style). Here are some others instead.
And for all that, my personal favourite is probably the black and white, devoid of any striking colour, an image that could have equally been captured on a cloudy nondescript day.
