The streets are paved with gold!

Well, that of the photographic, rather than the Dick Whittington variety at least. As the Tate Modern’s current exhibition Street and Studio amply demonstrates, the camera and the street have a longstanding affiliation, with many photographers deriving their inspiration from the highways and byways of metropolises the world over.

Shoot London, organised in collaboration with Shoot Experience, challenged participants to produce a series of images from the concrete pathways threading the environs of the Tate Modern – with the negligible qualifications of a six-hour timeframe and a specific set of encoded directions. Undaunted, the Forum team set out on a race (gentle amble after chatting about ‘tactics’ for at least an hour over coffee) to decipher the photographic treasure trail that had been laid for us, armed with three cameras (one of which we knew how to use), a mangy but trusty A-Z, a plastic fish and a fake ear (props, not private peccadilloes).





Ten clues would lead us, and the sixty or so other competing teams, to ten different locations along the river - and at each location we had to take a photograph. This all sounded straightforward enough, but became much less so as we desperately attempted to create an image which simultaneously demonstrated we had cracked the riddle, captured a specific sense of place, and found an innovative way of looking at bits of London as wearily au-fait with the photographer’s lens as St Paul’s and Borough Market.

As with any set task, the parameters were at once limiting and librating. The most successful images to emerge from the days hunting were those that found a humorous way of re-inventing the clue – such as the woman who lay down gamely on the bank of the river Thames whilst her team mates endowed here with a pair of wings and a halo in the surrounding sand (Clue: ‘Gabriel’s Wharf’, of course) – or those which captured a moment of spontaneity, like the simple but effective image of three figures leaping on the Millennium Bridge silhouetted against their umbrellas.



Yet whilst the rule of the day was fun and enjoyment, there were some interesting things to come out of the slideshow showing everyone’s images that rounded off the end of the day. It was fascinating to see the details that other people had picked up on - and, despite having scoured our brains for new interpretations and alternative shots, it was revealing (and a little chastening) to see how many times the same angles and ideas were repeated across other submissions. It was also particularly informative to notice the capacity of tiny differences – in depth, tone and composition – to differentiate two photographs of the same subject and cause you to dismiss one in favour of the other. An enjoyable, if exhausting day, there were more than a few little technical and conceptual gems to mull over and bear in mind during the next encounter with a camera.