Portraits - Side Project (The Alleyway)

On my way back from doing my second shoot I found a set of steps at the entrance of the park which looked down an alleyway. Although this didn't have anything to do with the idea that brought me to the park, it gave me an idea that could possibly turn out quite well. I decided to take a seat on the steps and just wait until someone walked past me; I would then take their picture. I thought this would be an interesting idea because I would be capturing random strangers in their natural life. Some people who walked past were in a hurry and others having just a gentle stroll; I feel like the pictures I took may give an insight to their lives through the way they were walking, the speed they were walking and even the emotions on their face.

Above are the steps that I sat on whilst taking the pictures and also my view from the steps of the alleyway. I timed it and gave myself a maximum of 15 minutes to take a picture of every person who walked towards or away from me, as long as they walked through the alleyway, I took a picture of them. Whilst doing this I believe I had about 2 or 3 people acknowledge me but each one thought I was only taking a picture of the alleyway itself, you can see this from the man in the flat cap who was smiling, his image was slightly blurry because he tried to do a little jog to get out of the shot he thought I was taking.

After doing this side project I feel that I would definitely do it again. I think the outcome was very different and the photos came out well. There were no complications when doing this project and the positive of this is that I could go back to the same steps and have completely different results every time I did it.