A Change of Perspective

London, a Leica M6 and a Little Kindness

New York has rather spoiled me.

Before September’s trip with the kids, London was the place I went when I wanted to lose myself in street photography. There was always somewhere to walk, something happening, another reason to keep the camera out.

Returning on Saturday, for my first proper London photography walk in quite a while, I found myself making comparisons. After the hurly-burly of New York, London felt surprisingly subdued. Somewhere I had regarded as a photographic mecca suddenly seemed a little less overwhelming.

Perhaps that says more about what I brought home from New York than it does about London.

Finding My Feet Again

I started at Green Park and headed up Regent Street towards Oxford Circus. I wanted to see how Oxford Street was changing as it moves towards pedestrianisation, and to get a feel for what it might become.

I could imagine something of the Saturday-morning atmosphere I enjoy in Brighton’s neighbourhoods: people taking their time, stopping for a conversation, making use of the street as somewhere to spend time. I hope that feeling finds its way into this part of London.

From there, I walked Oxford Street between Selfridges and Centre Point, then wandered through Soho and Chinatown.

I was also trying Flâneur, an app that let me map the walk. By the end, the orange line recorded 4.3 miles and just under three hours of wandering. There is something satisfying about seeing a morning’s movement laid out afterwards: the detours and changes of direction that make perfect sense when you have a camera in your hand.

London took a little adjusting to. I had arrived with New York still setting the pace in my head, and it took some walking to become interested in what was actually around me.

There were photographs to make and different perspectives to find. Familiarity can make that harder to recognise. You think you know a place, then visit it after being somewhere else and discover that your expectations have changed.

A Small Repair

There was another reason for the trip.

At the beginning of the year, in the unsettled period leading up to my redundancy, I dropped my Leica M6 and damaged the rewind crank. My head was in the shed. I wasn’t thinking properly, and the camera paid for a moment’s distraction.

I took it into Aperture to see whether they could help.

The stop and the chat broke up the day. Then came the good news: the camera could be sorted, and the man in the shop repaired it for free.

A small act of kindness, and one I appreciated enormously.

It brought me back to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I read some fifteen years ago. What has stayed with me is a way of thinking about the things we use and look after. We carry them through our lives, and inevitably they acquire marks from the experience.

The little dinks and dents become reminders of where we have been, including the periods when we haven’t quite been ourselves.

That doesn’t make damaging a camera any less frustrating at the time. I would certainly have preferred to keep the rewind crank intact. But having it repaired felt like finally attending to a small piece of unfinished business from a difficult year.

The M6 was ready to go again. So was I.

I shot a quick roll of film, then rushed home to get it developed. After a morning spent wondering whether London could still excite me in the same way, there I was, impatient to see what I had brought back.

I’m grateful to the gentleman at Aperture. He gave me back a working camera, and the afternoon took on a different feeling because of it.

London can wait a little while before its next comparison with New York. I have a roll of film to look at first.

Until next time, keep snapping.