2025-07-11 01:42:15
Yes, I know a second video in a row from London. I do go to other places, I promise, but when time allows, and I can sneak away from the usual work and family chaos, I sometimes make the drive down and hop on the tube for a bit of street photography. London always pulls me back in.
I don’t live here, which means I’m not strolling the city every weekend. So, when I do come down, I try to make the most of it. There are a few places I nearly always visit — not because they’re some hidden, magical secrets, but because they tend to deliver. These aren’t groundbreaking locations by any means; they’re more like the pumpkin spice latte of London street photography spots. Reliable. Easy to get to. And usually good for a few decent shots.
This might sound obvious, but the London Underground isn’t just a way to get from A to B. It’s your first proper slice of London — full of interesting faces, shadows, movement, and occasionally great light. Most guides list it as an afterthought, but I think it deserves more credit.
You don’t even need to wait until you reach your ‘proper’ destination. I’ve lost count of how many shots I’ve taken just on the way somewhere else. Paying attention during those in-between moments is often where the good stuff happens.
Always one of my first stops. It’s a classic for a reason. The light here is better early or late — strong shadows, deep contrast, brutalist lines everywhere. It’s a photographer’s playground, though it’s worth remembering people live here, and there’s a school, so be mindful.
One thing to flag — the station itself isn’t the most accessible. If you need step-free access, Bank is a better bet, and you can walk up from there.
From Barbican, I usually wander down to Bank. The architecture is strong, the light is nearly always good, and there’s no shortage of people passing through. It’s easy to stick to the big spaces, but it’s worth ducking into the side streets. That’s where the real stuff is. Little pockets of light, random reflections, odd angles — the kind of things you won’t find listed in any guide.
Photography’s meant to be personal, so find your version of it. It’s easy to take the same shots as everyone else, but it’s more fun to take the ones only you would spot.
I’ve never come here and not taken a shot I was at least half-happy with. It’s right near Bank and gives you reflections, angles, and the backdrop of St. Paul’s. I always head up to the balcony to shoot down onto the spiral staircase. On a bright day, the shadows are spot-on.
Bonus tip: it’s one of the only places you can use the loo in central London without pretending to buy chips.
Alright, yes — I’m from the North. But when it comes to street photography, the South Bank delivers. You’ve got staircases, bold architecture, loads of light, and more characters than you’ll know what to do with.
I usually swing by the Tate Modern — worth a wander for the light and the architecture alone. Then there’s the Millennium Bridge, which gives you those clean shots of people against the sky. Further down, near Blackfriars, there’s always someone interesting milling about. Or a goose. Or both.
I often end up near the Southbank Centre or National Theatre — good shadows, brutalist shapes, and lots of people moving through. If you’re into more of the fine-art style stuff, you can definitely find it here. If you’re just after good people-watching, you’re also in the right place.
By the time I’ve hit those spots, I’m ready for a break — or at least a coffee. There are loads of other places: Covent Garden, King’s Cross, Leicester Square… but this little route tends to be my go-to. Easy to walk, lots to see, and more than enough variety to keep things interesting.
I’m hoping to branch out a bit more next time. Waterloo keeps coming up in conversation, so that’s on the list. If you’ve got any other recommendations, send them my way.
And with that, I’m going to carry on shooting for the day and see what I find. Until next time.
Good morning, friends, and welcome to London again. I swear I do go to other places, but for the second video in a row, I'm visiting London. I've managed to grab a bit of time in between my busy life of work, family commitments, and all those sorts of things. I don't live in London, so it's a couple of hours' drive down here, plus a bit of time on the underground.
The reason I've come down is that I wanted to go through a few of the spots that I usually visit as a street photographer who only sometimes comes to London. I watched a video at the start of last year when I was coming down for the London Marathon to pick up my number. A really good street photographer, Sam, made a video going through some of his street photography spots, and it really helped me. I brought down my little GR3X, went around some of the spots, and took some of the shots that he did. It really helped me out and, in many respects, it made me get back into street photography and showed me around London.
So, I wanted to do the same for someone that just comes down here every so often, as it is a bit of a trek. There's nothing special about these street photography spots; they could probably be considered the "pumpkin spice" of London street photography locations. But the reason I've chosen these is that I only come down here every so often, so I like to take advantage and almost guarantee myself some interesting shots. They're all within a good space of each other, all definitely walkable and very accessible. So, let's start going through them.
This first spot isn't really a spot at all: it's the London Underground. You'll see it on most street photography blogs and articles, tucked away at the bottom as a bit of an afterthought. In reality, it's probably going to be the first interaction that you'll have with London as a whole. It's a fantastic resource for a street photographer—always full of interesting people, and on a day like today with great light, there's always great architecture and nice shadows. I've already got a couple of shots just walking down here.
I guess there's a philosophical stance here. I'm certainly guilty of going to street photography spots, just traveling between them, standing there, looking around, and saying, "What do I take a photo of now?" In reality, going between the two things or paying attention during your journey can get you some really nice shots in the first instance. So, my first spot and my first port of call with any journey into London is the London Underground.
My first actual stop is usually the Barbican. It's better earlier on in the day and then later in the evening when the light gets low, draws out the shadows, and you get some really nice contrast. It's a bit of a mecca for street photographers. Obviously, be mindful and considerate because people do live here. Also, bear in mind there's a school in the Barbican, so considerations all around. One other thing to consider is that the Barbican underground station is not the most accessible. If you need step-free access, you're probably best off getting the underground to Bank and then walking back up. But the Barbican gives us a good starting point, usually gets me a few warm-up shots in, and it's a good place to walk to the rest of the spots I enjoy. So yes, the Barbican is always a good first stop for me.
So, I've taken the very short walk down to Bank. Most people will just come straight here, and rightly so. The Bank of England has iconic architecture, there's nearly always perfect light, and you're always guaranteed to find loads of people about, especially first thing in the morning like I am. But if you stray a bit further out to the sides, down one of the little side streets, through one of the little centres, you're going to find little pools of light, some fantastic hidden architecture, and some real gems. You can't go wrong heading over to Bank.
It doesn't take very much effort to find a few spots that are at least a little bit off the beaten track. Like I said before, you can go to all the street photography spots you want, but finding those little bits on the journey between those spots will benefit you much more, and you'll be able to find something unique. Don't take the shots that everybody else takes. I've been to places and done all those sorts of things, and it's great to start off with, but photography is all about expressing yourself, whatever genre you're into. Find those little bits down those side streets and really express yourself. I found this spot with my son a few weeks ago, and there's a bar down there, believe it or not, underneath the street. London is fantastic for street photography and just weirdness in general.
I don't think I've ever come to London for street photography and not visited One New Change and come away with a shot that I'm relatively happy with. And for good reason: there are some really nice angles, loads of reflections, and you've got the backdrop of St. Paul's that you can shoot against. One of my favourite spots is just over the balcony there; you can shoot down onto the spiral staircase and, in good lighting like today, get some really nice shadows that people can walk in and out of. Shout out to Sam who pointed this shot out to me and got me straight back into street photography. So, One New Change, just down the road from Bank, is definitely worth visiting.
I'm beating a bit of a strange path over to the South Bank. Obviously, it's "North London forever," but when it comes to street photography, you can't go wrong with the South Bank. One thing I usually pay particular attention to is staircases because you can get some really nice contrast against a plain sky or a nice background like Tower Bridge. I like to come down the river where you've got lots of nice staircases up to bridges and buildings.
When you come down the South Bank, always check out the Tate Modern. It's completely free to enter; they just have a look in your camera bag if you bring one with you. There's quite a lot of good architecture and stuff in there. You don't have to go in and see the gallery. There's a quite famous staircase and some brutalist architecture, which is quite common with street photographers. I've managed to get a couple of shots in there before, but not very many. But it's definitely worth checking out, especially on a day like today when you can get some nice light coming through the big windows.
One of my favourite places to try and shoot when I'm down here is the Millennium Bridge, outside the Tate Modern, across from St. Paul's. You can get some really nice contrast of people against the sky and some real individual takes. I always like this little area before you get to Blackfriars Bridge as well. There are always some interesting characters down here, as well as a few geese, and you can always grab a coffee if you want to.
Down on the South Bank, you've got the National Theatre that I'm sat in right now, you've got the Southbank Centre, you've got all sorts of interesting bits and pieces that have all got great architecture. You can get some really nice shadows, especially in the Southbank Centre, to get those sort of fine-art street photography shots if you want to. But to me, the South Bank is all about the people. There are some interesting characters you see down there: tourists, people from all over the world. You've got a big bunch of skateboarders underneath the Southbank Centre as well. So, there's plenty to look at and plenty to do.
By this point in my day, I'm usually completely beat. I'm at least ready for a coffee and something to eat. But I think for the rest of today, I'm just going to chill out, have a walk further down the South Bank, and take some shots. It doesn't mix very well with trying to capture everything for the video.
So, I'm going to leave it here, but that gives you five or six different spots that I usually go to when I'm visiting London to take my street photography. Shout out to Covent Garden, King's Cross, and Leicester Square. There are some other bits and pieces, but this is usually where I start because I can't go far wrong. I'm hoping in the near future to expand my street photography horizons in London. A lot of people are pointing me towards places like Waterloo. So if you've got any other spots you want me to check out, then please let me know.
2025-06-20 21:02:04
This morning, whilst catching up with my RSS feed subscriptions, I noticed that both Manu and Kevin have posted some updates on experiments I am also currently doing. Also, before we get too far, please excuse the weird title. I’ve been rewatching Silicon Valley this week, and it’s as relevant today as it was in 2019. In that show, everything had to be social and appealing to the masses. Whereas at the minute, I am continuing to still not appeal to the masses and be even less social.
Not because I’m some kind of hermit and want to draw away from the world, more that I have realised that all the time I’ve spent reading about other people’s lives in social feeds is wasted. To be clear, I’m talking about my own personal experiences, so if yours differ, that’s great. I am just of the opinion that it’s time for me to move away from dominating my life with things that I don’t need to give space in my day.
I have spent a long time online, with Yahoo forums, IRC channels, Facebook and Twitter timelines, and now the Fediverse. I met some amazing people and forged some great relationships, but I’m old now, and things change. There’s no grand ’I’m quitting’ post here or self-congratulatory words to evangelise for others to do the same. It’s just my words, which have struggled to come out until I took a step back. With a big realisation, that, in reality, those that really care find a way.
The biggest thing I have found is the space to do more things. To play some games, read more books, learn some new skills, and write more. So many positive things with no real downside. My passive consumption of other people’s lives makes no difference to them but makes all the difference to me.
That’s really the discovery here. The space and time that I have made because of my own addictive tendencies to spend too much time online have been tremendous. When you want to do as many things as I do and still need eight hours to sleep and another eight to sleep, there’s no time to waste. As I wrote about earlier, getting comfortable with boredom has meant that I am more selective of the activities that I let spoil it.
There’s also a realisation here of the limits of connections I’ve made. Of course, I don’t do anything that I do online for attention or feedback, but the relationships that I have made online are dwindling. As bad as Twitter was, it was much easier to connect with other like-minded people. When that is spread over several networks, the work required is much harder. Many of the people I forged friendships with have moved to message threads or in-person gatherings rather than tweets and posts. Which I value much more.
Moreover, only occasionally posting online has led to so little repose that it is barely worth it. Yet, on the other hand, I miss being online. Interacting with people online, in even a small way, is all I’ve ever known. Sharing things about my life and journey through it in the hope that others take something from my posts. In no small part, these interactions have meant that I have overcome some of the hardest things in my life. I have no ‘real’ in person friends anyway.
Sharing my journey with Lucie, her diagnosis, and all the things we get up to gave me the motivation to overcome my mental health issues. As well as get back to fitness following heart problems. Pushing me to raise money for charity and run a marathon for the first time in years. Purely down to the fact that people have taken an interest in my dull little life.
There have also been a few times over the last week that I have needed to ask questions of the internet’s hive mind. To solve a code issue that perhaps my followers would know. Maybe to try to find extra resources to learn about a topic. Whatever the motivation, the posts have been left published and instead replaced by in-depth research or nothing at all. Sometimes it’s too easy to post.
Ultimately, I am constantly looking for answers. Most of which I cannot find, and all of which I have no idea where to even start. In many people’s eyes, I have a strange way of examining my life, which, I think, is fair. I am more sure than ever that none of the things I am forever searching for can be found on a timeline.
2025-06-20 15:43:01
There’s a tendency for me to start off a post like this with a bit of backstory. Perhaps some very surface level reasoning and almost explain myself before starting off the real post. Writing a few words that gets people interested in an age of reducing attention spans and constant need for entertainment. This dear reader is the issue at hand, and it’s time we got uncomfortable.
Without going into too much detail, for the past few weeks I have been both intentionally, and non intentionally, making myself uncomfortable. Since my hellish run in the Manchester marathon, and the few days afterwards, I have felt something missing. Nothing to work towards and my day-to-day life being, well, a bit meh!
Leading in no small part to using my phone too much, eating too much, and procrastinating lots about the things that I do have to do. Every influencer on social media would call this a dopamine issue (while selling you something to ‘cure’ it) so I decided enough was enough and proceeded to have a bit of a detox.
At first, it felt like I was cutting out everything that I enjoyed. That I was punishing myself in a moment of self sabotage because I felt a bit down. There were times when I could have given in. Easily sneaked a look at my phone instead of reading a book. Perhaps grabbed some junk food to fill the hole that I felt in myself. It certainly would have been easier.
As time went on, I filled this void myself. By making myself uncomfortable, and coupling this with making my workouts tougher, everything else felt easy. In fact, the spaces in my life were filled, but with more meaningful things than instant hits of gratification, and even the empty space became much more comfortable. The emptiness became a period to think about the things that I wanted to achieve and not something I wanted to fill with rubbish.
With this came the understanding that many of the things that I thought I enjoyed. Those that I was worried I was ‘missing out’ on but actually matter all that much. The online people that I enjoyed talking to still go in contact by other means, and my life continued just as it did. However, I am much more content, much more fulfilled. Yes, I am much lonelier than I was before, but my determination to be uncomfortable for a while made me perfectly ok with that.
2025-06-09 18:35:42
Yes another Switch 2 post. I am sure you are sick of reading them by now. The new generation of Nintendo consoles hit this week and I really wasn’t going to buy one. But I did on a whim and for once no buyer remorse — all of us have been playing it all weekend.
There’s no review here. You can find specs and professional opinions everywhere on the web by now. My good friend Daryl posted his on his newsletter Springboard if you want to read some early thoughts but I digress. The best thing about Nintendo consoles has always been the playability for all of our family and the Switch 2 improves on that.
Of course my teenage son has an Xbox and a Playstation, because like streaming services god forbid you couldn’t play all the games. Whilst they are both excellent, and have unimaginably great graphics etc (don’t @ me PC gamers), for me they lack the approachability suitable for family gaming. Stadia got close, and then Xbox tried (don’t forget a Steamdeck too) but it never stuck like Nintendo does.
Some of this no doubt nostalgia. Mario and Luigi filled much of my childhood, so the cartoon plumbers and assorted friends will always have a special place in my heart. However I think it is more to do with approachability. Nintendo position themselves as a family friendly gaming company, providing wholesome games that are easy to pick up and put down.
Whereas, purely from my perspective, if I had a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X (I think thats the current one?) I’d be more inclined to buy and play a raft of games that ‘real gamers’ play and struggle to fit them in to my life. I can pick up and put down Zelda and Mario Kart in a much easier way than I could Horizon Zero Dawn or Red Dead Redemption without loosing the muscle memory of playing.
Combine this with the fact that I can play it on the couch and not tucked away in a different room due to the Switches portability makes it an ideal console for me. What it has lacked is the occasional full features game that I wanted to also play. Hopefully with the Switch 2 there will be a ‘proper’ EA FC, not the stripped down version that plagued the first version. I have my fingers crossed for September. Until then I am enjoying smashing my family on Mario Kart in the front room with the occasional trip to Hyrule in between.
2025-05-23 01:21:00
So, the worst kept tech newe in history after what the next Pixel phone looks like, is out: Sam Altman’s OpenAI and Jony Ive’s design firm, LoveFrom are formally combining efforts with a hardware group called “io.” Their stated aim? To “completely reimagine what it means to use a computer”.It’s a bold claim, the kind the tech industry loves to make. We’ve heard variations of it before. And yet, the names involved already gives me reason to believe. OpenAI is undeniably at the forefront of AI development. Jony Ive’s design influence, particularly from his Apple tenure, is significant.
The core premise, according to the announcement, is that our current interfaces – laptops, phones, the whole tap-and-type dance – are inadequate for the powerful AI now at our disposal. Sam Altman described the current process of querying ChatGPT as cumbersome, ending with, “I think this technology deserves something much better.”
On that specific point, I find myself nodding. There’s often a real friction in trying to bridge the gap between what these AI models can theoretically do and the practicalities of interacting with them through existing hardware and software paradigms. The experience can feel disjointed.
The question, then, is what this “something much better” will look like. They speak of a “family of devices,” with the first prototype apparently eliciting high praise internally – Jony Ive reportedly calling it “the best work our team has ever done.”
Naturally, specifics are scarce. The direction seems to be away from traditional screens, perhaps towards something more ambient or integrated into one’s environment. This is where my skepticism usually kicks in. We’ve seen other ventures attempt to create dedicated AI hardware, promising a new era of interaction. The track record isn’t exactly stellar — Humane pin anyone? Devices often end up feeling like solutions in search of a problem, or they simply don’t offer enough utility to justify their existence alongside the already capable (if imperfect) devices we own.
What might make this different? Ive’s involvement is key here. If his design philosophy genuinely permeates the product, it won’t just be about the technology; it will be about the holistic user experience. He spoke about his desire to push humanity forward recently and it did feel like he meant it.
It would need to be intuitive, perhaps even beautiful, but above all, it would need to be useful and respectful of the user’s attention and privacy. These are aspects where new hardware, especially “always-aware” AI devices, often stumbles.
They also talk about shared values and the responsibility that comes with this kind of technological advancement. The desire to “democratize” these tools is a laudable goal. The announcement mentions enabling “anybody to say, hey, I have this idea. Make it happen.” That resonates with the indie spirit, the idea of empowering individuals.
But the gap between such pronouncements and the reality of product development, market pressures, and the complexities of human behaviour is vast.
For me, any new device in this space has to answer some hard questions. I’m not holding my breath for a revolution, but I am curious to see what tangible product, if any, emerges from this. More importantly, whether it will be something that everyday users actually find enhances their lives, rather than just serving the grand visions of its creators. The proof, as they say, will be in the using.
2025-05-14 00:48:11
A mere three weeks ago, I ran the Manchester Marathon. Thank you to all those that supported me aging the way, but I crossed the line very disappointed. The conditions were torturously hot and humid, meaning I was 30+minutes slower than what I wanted. So here I am training again, this time on a structured plan for a half-marathon in September and then another full one in April 2026, but I’m struggling to slow down.
I don’t run fast anyway. There’s no way that either of the marathons I have run can be considered anywhere near ’racing’ but I know I can do better. To run faster, my new plan contains countless sessions where I run much slower than usual, and I’m struggling with these the most.
I think there are two reasons for this. The first being that I always like to push myself as hard as possible. Being as hard on myself as possible in the process too. Doing hard things is my enjoyment in life, so going out and purposely running slow isn’t in my vocabulary or my mind set.
The second of which is appearances. I might one day train my monkey brain to slow down and plod the streets at the recommended ‘recovery, pace, but I feel like a fool. Even more so packed up with water bottles and energy gels for a long run, I must look to others like a meme of a real runner at essentially brisk walking pace.
I do understand that running slow to run fast will help me in the long run, but it’s a struggle. Forget the progressive overload and the drop sets of pace setting, the slow run is much harder on my mind. I told my wife never again, and she promised to stop me from doing this! Yet here I am trying desperately to slow myself down and it’s torture.
