Location

My BTEC photography class has long since resumed after the Christmas break and the latest assignment, set before the break, was due last week. The theme of this assignment was "Location"  and it came with a qualifying twist - the title was "Precious". The idea was explore location photography, but subject concept was something precious. A dictionary definition of "precious" could suggest something of great value of high price in monetary terms, but I was thinking of something non material and decided upon memories. And being on a photographic course, recording memories with a camera.

I'm fascinated with street photography, and like the work of Robert Doisneau, I've got book of his work in Paris. Here are some examples of his work -

I've recently become aware of the work of Vivian Maier, who photographed Chicago - you can view examples in a dedicated blog here. Fairly inspiring, so I thought "lets try some street photography".
 I don't have easy access to Chicago and couldn't get to Paris within the time constraints of the assignment, but as I live in London, there should not be any shortage of locations. Also, unlike the two above, I'd work in colour and digital capture. Folk tend to take many photos - of each other as well as the sights - in central London, so Trafalgar Square and the British Museum were to be the starting points. My take on the theme/concept was people recording precious memories of themselves and their friends out and about, whether on holidays or otherwise.

The British Museum may not the be obvious place for "street" photography, but it is the approach that counts in this case. Inside the lighting was mixed (daylight coming through the windows and of course artifical light, tungsten etc) and dull, so had to push the asa up to 1600 and not using a tripod - here are some possibles for final selection -

The light outside was almost as dull as inside that day of the shoot, so left the asa at 1600 (apart from two out of about 60 in total - see the final selection below - the light must have momentarily improved at the time of taking !)  Here are some more possibles from Trafalgar Square -

After discussion in class last week - I'd brought in my contacts and some prints - here is my final selection of 5 photos (the assignment required 5) - 

At one time - in pre digital days, I used HP5 (an excellent black & white film). It was nominally rated at 400 asa, but I uprated it to1600 and the results were GRAINY (that's NOISY in digital speak).There isn't the same level of grain in this lot. Improving technology ? Don't know. Can always add some noise via Photoshop. Probably not for colour work, think noise works better for black and white ?