London frequently draws me back. A photographer’s dream, a tourist’s utopia, a citizens chore.
It’s an enigma. For a private and reclusive individual who dislikes and actively avoids large crowds, busy streets and the maelstrom of a big city, London is strangely captivating.
The engineering of the underground fascinates me. Even the tourist traps such as Covent Garden and Portobello Road are captivating. And I love the ease of getting around the city from place to place - if only everywhere was this easy!
But above everything else I think it’s the people who make coming back time after time the most rewarding.
My possible AuDHD internal monologue is always telling me things, about the places and the people in them. When I see someone in the street my mind has usually already written them a story.
The middle aged woman on the tube. She’s tired after a long shift as a nurse at the hospital, but knows her day isn’t done. She’s a single mother with two school age kids waiting for her at home. She still needs to drop into the shops to buy dinner for her children and herself before she gets home. After dinner she needs to help her eldest with her homework before she can even think about retiring for the evening. The laundry and washing up will have to wait.
Then there’s the young man wearing smart clothes and a confident determination. For him I might have two different stories. He might be a successful entrepreneur on his way to meet, greet and open up new opportunities. Or he might be a Jehovah’s Witness on his way to a street corner, preparing for his shift spreading the good news of God’s Kingdom among mankind, or at least among those who pause long enough to look at his street hoarding.
Then there are those for whom my internal author does not find a story to tell. My eyes lock onto an individual fully expecting a description of who they are to be instantly fully formed. Instead there is only a blank page. I find such individuals the most intriguing of all, and it is these people who I like to find with my camera.
The girl in this photograph was such an individual. My internal writer did not have a story for her. No job, no description, no destination, no significant other - I could not even decide what kind of music she was listening to at that moment. She was just there, anchoring a sense of stillness and calm in a place moving at 90 miles an hour, and at the same time that person caused all my internal threads to pause for a moment - no chaos, no internal monologue, no desperately trying to simultaneously process a hundred different problems.
Maybe that’s why these people stand out to me so much. If I went back to that same place on the Jubilee line I’d almost expect her to still be there, unaware more than a moment had passed.
I raised my camera, discreetly as possible and capture the moment. I dislike confrontation and would be mortified to be seen taking a candid photograph of someone.
I wonder where she is now? Does she still ride the Jubilee line, or was she just a tourist passing through. Viewing this image still causes my internal anarchy to slow - I still have no story for her, and that’s ok, even though it is not ok.
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