- Jamie Dean
Graffiti Safari - Shoreditch.
So now that the lockdown has been virtually lifted I ventured back into the City of London. A location I would often visit when the World was "normal" but a place i haven't walked for over three months as I have been isolated at home. I was heading to Shoreditch to look for interesting street art to photograph and as I haven't been into this area of London for sometime i was sure on finding something new and interesting. Disembarking from the train at London Bridge station I instantly noticed how quiet it was. Sure I was in London early on a Sunday morning but still, I hardly saw anyone else about as I walked across the normally crowded London Bridge. Normally tourists lined the bridge taking selfies of themselves with Tower Bridge in the background. Today, nobody. Of course this may have also been due to London Bridge undergoing some pretty serious road surface maintenance and a lot of the bridge was closed off to both road traffic and pedestrians.
Once I reached the Shoreditch area, I walked around the usual streets searching for new street art. Everywhere I looked there were new pieces of art. Also due to it being Sunday morning a lot of the shops were closed so I was able to see and photograph the street art on their shutters while they were down, which wouldn't normally have been seen. Due to the real lack of exercise I had while in lockdown my feet and legs soon began to ache as I clocked up the steps, but I was determined to keep walking around the route I normally take while in Shoreditch. Along Brick Lane, market stalls where beginning to set up as the morning progressed. The streets were beginning to fill with people on a traditional Sunday morning amble, although it was not as busy as it would be if there was some kind of normality to life. It was strange to see that although we were still effectively in the midst of a pandemic I was one of the only people walking the streets wearing a mask. I expected to see a lot more people caring for the nation by wearing some sort a face covering, but no, most were just walking around like life was normal.
I managed to photograph quite a few pieces of new art, a few are presented on this page. They were all capture with my Nikon D800 and 24-70mm f2.8 lens. It was great to be out with the Nikon after all this time and it was interesting to see all the new vibrant art on the walls. I didn't stay too long in London and was soon returning to London Bridge to catch my train home.
