Well, finally got around to drumming up the interest to approach photography again.... Aside from obligatory/boring 365 shots in the last few days I've had zero interest in taking pictures
http://goo.gl/maps/V0C4w - part 1. This was the route I personally walked, although Google maps is only an approximation of the distance walked - the GPS tracker on my phone confirms that I had walked 12km in the first 4 hours. This was easily the most productive period of the shoot, good light, tons of interesting people and though tired from a heavy week at work it was good fun. The burger, chips and a beer at 9.30 was a good reward! However at this stage my friend and I had lost Paul (we each went where we wanted for sunset) and afterwards we got sidetracked when my friend met his girlfriend. Though the intention was to meet up with Paul and continue we took far, far too long ambling up Bishopsgate to get to him (sorry
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http://goo.gl/maps/LSOi1 - part 2. After passing Leadenhall market, visiting the Gherkin and it's dinosaurs we headed through Devonshire square to the RBS building where I dumped my backpack and tripod - much better, I'd waayyy overpacked - and against my personal wishes, headed up Shoreditch High Street to find a bar. Depsite it being past 12pm so all the pubs were closed. Shoreditch is ROUGH. Extremely unsavoury characters, the only "bars" were barely concealed strip clubs and my blissfully unaware friends toting cameras around getting dirty looks from many people. So for a good couple of hours I wandered around without getting my camera out at all, trying to avoid people stumbling into me etc. I'd have preferred to been somewhere better and brighter, like Piccadilly, or just go for a rest. After finding one of the roughest pubs I've ever seen still open we settled down for a rest and a drink then continued on - dodging a group of people dressed like soldiers coming back from some kind of dinner/event who tried to grab my camera - before spending nearly two hours wandering around Old Street/Barbican. Pretty much a waste of time, nothing to see, too dark to shoot anyway. Eventually arrived back at St. Pauls where I tried for some mono shots perching my camera at unusual angles, then heading to Charing Cross. By now it's about 4am and it's the true low point, sitting in Charing Cross station like tramps. Potter across the river at dawn looking for the supposed Samsung representatives with their free 16gb memory cards - nowhere to be seen of course - before getting coffee and breakfast in Waterloo station. We then checked out Borough market which was just setting up, my friend hassled by someone lurking around there for his camera too, at which point with one bleeding foot, sore/tired everywhere, I decide I've had enough. It was supposed to be fun and with crappy Sunday weather and zero interesting shots around I realise I'm not enjoying it so go home.
In all, the idea was good but poorly executed. The Friday night was a lot of fun and I think/hope I've got some decent shots but the overnight stretch was either plagued by drunk idiots or just flat out boring - a place to rest, check out the shots etc. would have helped restore some energy.
Will I do it again? Yeah, but I'll plan better and maybe take the chance to do strobist stuff in a quieter part of town and get some sleep in the early hours. Doing it in July would be better too. I intend to give feedback to the organisers because their supposed "meetups" were nothing of the sort, meaning we were standing on miserable, rainy bridges at 4am looking for Samsung reps who simply weren't there.
All in all I give it 50% - 100% for Friday night, dropping off sharply to 0% for the period after about 1am.
