The photographer reports on spring scenes in the city.

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The sun is finally out. It drags me by feet out from under the heavy blankets of clouds that’s dominated our skies for endless weeks. A long walk begs; camera in pocket. I set off from Baker Street. I walk a little way down some mews, where the backs of buildings throw jagged grey triangles against the blue sky. Fasting moving clouds with somewhere else to be roll by. Somewhere in a security booth a guy monitoring local CCTV cameras is wondering what I’m looking at. I stand my ground as a construction worker approaches from down the way. “Hey.”  

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At Broadley Street Gardens I get caught in a sudden shower. I wait it out under my umbrella. It rains sideways, but passes quickly. Semi-lost trying to find the ever-photogenic Wallis building, I stumble onto an estate somewhere off Church Street. I’m pointing my camera towards a water reservoir atop a building, when a woman calls down at me from an upstairs window. “Why are you taking pictures?” I tell her it’s because I like documenting spaces and places. The city as it lives and breathes. I don’t say that wanky last bit. “Soon none of this will be here anymore”, she says, and looks pointedly at the new builds creeping closer. I hold my camera up, as if to say “that’s why”. She seems satisfied. Somehow that’s the only conversation I end up having all day. The one about the why I take pictures. 

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Two guys with acoustic guitars and aviator sunglasses sit cross-legged on the pavement outside the fabric shop. The scattering of market goers are completely ambivalent to their hungover-sounding off brand desert folk. The fishmongers are deep in conversation under their grubby canopy. Hands on hips. The sun gleams off rows of silver scales. Nearby people are gutting a huge pile of clothes; unseeing and wholly focused on a bargain. I slip around the corner and start swimming up the A5 towards Edgware Road.   

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I watch a guy in a hoodie kick a deflated football around, for his dog to run after on a small green. The sign on the gate says “No Dogs”. Across the road a guy on the balcony of a large grey block doesn’t seem to notice or care. I can’t be sure he’s really there. I never see people (apart from construction workers) on balconies in London. In some gardens next to the green, two goal posts stand either side a muddy hollow, with a gothic revival church looming large behind it. The image amuses me, given the holy devotion to football in this country. Saint Marcus Rashford comes to mind. I picture a rowdy game accompanied by organ music and the heady smell of incense. Or a small crowd cheering on the local priest. All the better if you could watch it from a balcony.   

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Somewhere in Maida Vale, I stand in the same spot for a long while to admire the stone arch across the road. A man taking something out of the boot of his fancy car nearby lifts his chin in a “you alright?” motion. [I love how just standing and looking at nothing and everything makes you seem out of place/sorts or lost. I suppose there’s a rule I missed about feet and cities and perpetual motion.] “Yeah, mate, just admiring the architecture. It’s a nice day to walk around and look at things.” He agrees, but says he’s lazy and prefers to drive. I feel obliged to compliment the car. He seems chuffed and jogwalks up the steps of a £1mil+ house. 

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On the other side of the world (read: a street away), three tower blocks bring their A-game in looking uniformly grim. A sweater hangs limply from a balcony 12 floors up on the first. From some unknown point on the second, the anguished howlshouts of a man. Again and again and again. The long-suffering face of a woman approaching the door of the building suggests it may last for hours yet. When I approach the third building, the door stays open for long seconds as a teenager engrossed in their phone is leaving. I consider slipping inside for a moment, imagining long corridors and deep stairwells. Photogenic cliches. The door clicks shut. And as I’m walking away, I turn back and see a “do not feed the pigeons” sign, defaced to read “do feed the pigeons”. I’ll second small escapist joys when a tortured voice is echoing between tall buildings nearby.

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I walk a couple of blocks in another direction and then return to the station. Two women outside the entrance bookend a “Learn About the Bible” stand with bright smiles. Nearby a guy sitting on a pile of newspapers is hunched over, hacking his lungs out. They avoid looking at him. It’s not a Good Friday for everyone. As I walk into the station, his voice croaks as if he’s about to speak to me. The moment is gone. I crumble internally and feel like a cad as I descend the stairs down into the belly of the earth. What a dick. Me, not him. The train is crowded. Three girls stand just a smidge too close to me. Hell. 

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A mother bends down low over her kid and shouts “I told you, I have no mo-ney!!” (two exclamation marks). She’s got him backed into a concrete corner, in prime public humiliation real estate. He says “okay, I’m sorry” in a weak voice, and she drags him and a mute little brother away up the High Road. They pass a man in a way too tight t-shirt with “It’s all about the grind” emblazoned on it. His kids are shading ice pops under matching Pikachu hats next to him. I hate it.

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A hugely drunk man outside M&S is keeping himself upright, by falling towards the Simply  sandwich in his hand, and then rebounding off it to chew the bite he’s taken. It’s impressive. A kinda-capoeira of sorts. I swerve him and go into the charity shop next door. A 1000-pager amongst the books has “Ulysses has nothing on this” as a review on the cover. A hard no from me. I’d rather dance-fight my way through a supermarket sandwich given the two options.  

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A lady with neat white curls has the paper spread out in front of her like a map. She’s studying it tight-lipped and frowning. Can she find us a way? Next to her, a long-lashed teenager’s thousand yard stare goes straight through me. She smiles briefly at a memory of a thing. As we pull into the next station a man shuffles off our carriage looking hugely lost. The legs and sleeves of his clothes are too long. His shoes too big. His hat askew. His origin story looks a few thousand miles away. It may as well be beyond Betelgeuse, it’s that easy to feel alien in the city. Been there, done that. The door closes. He’s on his own now.