London Test Shot

London Test Shot, to see if I could get the vibe… Matt Arnold 2021

So a good day strolling around London shooting spaces at various times of the day and dealing with getting a scene in the busy streets. The questions on my mind were:

Where might I find the places I have envisioned? 

Do they actually exist?

Do I need a tripod, or can I shoot hand held and get what I need?

What light am I looking for?

How to expose the scene?

How to deal with people and traffic? 

So, like all people that come to London, I started in the tourist areas looking for scenes. While I have a vision in mind, it became quickly apparent to me that these would not be found here. Shopping streets could work, but mostly it will be transient places within the city.

Do these places actually exist? What I have in my mind I very quickly found out does not exist. I am going to spend far too long and run out of time scouting the perfect locations within London’s streets and working out if they exist as I want them to or not and probably still not find anything that is perfect. I have therefore decided that I need to create and enhance the scene as I want it to be. 

Do I need a tripod etc, well yes! Since I will have to deal with traffic and people moving through my shots and less that ideal lighting conditions all requiring the use of multiple exposures then I realise I absolutely need to shoot all of this on a tripod if I am to stand any hope of the final composite working out! 

Since my final idea is a painterly look, I don’t want harsh light, hard shadows unless they can work in the final composition. I also don’t want bright/burnt highlights and shadows that are too deep. Also it’s London, there’s people, there’s traffic and everything is constantly moving. I found the best way to shoot was camera on a tripod, set the frame and then take shots as everything passed through the scene. Watching what and who was there and where they moved to became quite fun. The resulting frames would allow me to remove what was not wanted from the scene with digital montaging. I can also use the multiple exposures to control the final lighting conditions. 

It’s a shame I’m not Crewdson and can’t close a street, re-light it, have actors in the scenes and only the cars that I want…maybe one day!