After George and I completed our Beginners Course at Harrow College back in June 2013, we were very happy with what we had learnt regarding DSLR cameras, their various settings and techniques that can be used to take effective photographs.
Marc Vallée told us that he did 1:2 photography training in London, around Waterloo in particular. With our confidence high and keen to continue shooting on Manual settings George did this in August.
The biggest highlight of the day was visiting Leake Street tunnel, which is also known as ‘Banksy Tunnel’ or simply the ‘Graffiti Tunnel’. As you may have already guessed it is a tunnel where graffiti is present, but also completely legal – artists can visit this location and spray without any fear of getting into trouble with the law.
George and I found this style of training really beneficial to our learning – any questions we had were answered instantly by Marc. We were encouraged to take photos of subjects we wouldn’t have thought of and went into great detail about settings and technique. This even included George talking to a graffiti writer basically asking him if we could photograph what he was spraying – something we would have never dreamt of it we weren’t with Marc! George explained to the writer that we were photography students and he was more than happy to oblige. You’ll often find that if you approach members of the public out of politeness and explain what you are doing or trying to achieve they will more often than not co-operate which is reflected in your final shots.
This blog post is an opportunity to show off some of our best photos we shot on the day. Both George and I intend to go back to Leake Street tunnel to take more photos, which will allow us to retake any shots we felt we could do better, as well as an opportunity to take more with graffiti being our main subject.
As graffiti is legal in the tunnel it is constantly being resprayed and tagged by various graffiti writers, there is a good chance you might see something one day and the next it has been painted over and sprayed again – usually by someone else trying to make a point! This means messages and images can change on a daily basis – from a photographer’s point of view this allows a different shot every time. I personally find their messages very interesting, some make sense to viewers and some don’t –but that’s the beauty of graffiti. One thing you can be sure of is that the artist felt very strongly about whatever they are expressing.
George’s Photos
My Photos
Once George and I have revisited Leake Street and the surrounding area we will add a new post with some new shots and show how different the tunnel looks since we were there back in August.
Enjoy!
Kyle
twoblokeswithcameras 
Reblogged this on Random Repeat.
[…] 50mm lens, I suggested we went back to Leake Street – a graffiti tunnel we first visited back in August. This visit was actually in January, I have had a hectic few weeks and been very busy working on […]