The Top Floor Flat

I have a confession to make. Yesterday I shot London.

And I wasn’t alone. I had four accomplices who all helped. We shot London in the face, in the legs, in the back of the head… and after three hours and nearly 150 shots, we all turned ourselves into the Tate Modern in hopes someone would give us a prize for it.

Before anyone gets particularly concerned for London’s safety, I should perhaps mention that the shots were taken not with a gun but with a Canon PowerShot A590 as part of Shoot London. Myself and my team which included Spoonfed’s arts and exhibitions editor Tom who was there to review the event for Spoonfed, armed ourselves with camera and creativity to take part in the event.

At the beginning of the day, the 100+ teams met at the Tate Modern where they were given four words or phrases from a pre-written story. From noon until 3pm we had to traverse London looking for the perfect shot. Back at Tate Modern in the afternoon, all the images were put together and the complete storyline revealed.

As a concept, Shoot London is brilliant and I had been looking forward to the day with some excitement. Throughout the morning, the excitement built as we received our phrases (“I love you,” “dangerous predators,” “their stepmother” and the surprisingly difficult “she gently stroked their hair”) and saw the immense crowd of over 530 participants – some of whom seemed to be complete amateur photographers like ourselves while others had equipment that would have made National Geographic proud. At noon, we were all released into London, ready to compose four photographic masterpieces.

We directed our course towards the Southbank and Soho, figuring that if there are any parts of London apt to deliver inspiration it would be these two trendy, crowded and diverse areas. We hit on an early brainwave of using a reflective surface as the basis of our phrase “I love you,” interpreting the phrase narcissisticly and so the day’s shoot began.

Final photo for the phrase "I Love You"

Three increasingly frantic hours later, with our four final photos chosen and saved on the memory card, we returned to the Tate to wait for the final product. Unfortunately this is where the event began to break down. Although they had scheduled two hours between 3pm (when we returned with our photos) and 5pm (when the final story was meant to be shown) – already quite a long time to be seated in the cavernous turbine hall of the Tate Modern – technical difficulties pushed the wait back an extra hour. Despite the free beers and orange juice provided, three hours was an exceptionally long wait and there was an ever increasing amount of fidgeting and grumbling as we were told again and again “we’re so sorry… just a few more minutes.” I felt particularly bad for the organisers who were quite clearly stressed by the situation and impossibilities of modern technology (there was some quite public bashing of Macs, which is of course why I am a PC).

Final photo for the phrase "Fierce Predators"

Finally, the final product was ready and the author of the story, which turned out to be a modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel, began to narrate as our photos filled the screen.

I have to admit, it was quite impressive. The creativity and skill of some of the groups was stunning and there were quite a few shots that caused the entire room of over 500 to burst into laughter or applause. Our first photo appeared relatively early in the story and to our great disappointment we realised that, despite following the directions for labeling and tagging photos, they had been put in the wrong place – and throughout the rest of the narrative we noticed a number of other oddly irrelevant photos that indicated that other groups had suffered the same misfortune. By the end, however, the applause was thunderous and despite our pictures not receiving the credit they clearly deserved, we had to call the story an overall success.

Final photo for the phrase "Their Stepmother"

By the end of the event, our feelings were mixed. The first half of the day had been brilliant – nice weather, intriguing clues, a purposeful wander around London and the somewhat deluded hope that we would be selected as the day’s winner. The second half put a damper on the day as we waited with increasing frustration for the final product. Excitement again when the show began and then the letdown of seeing our photos in the wrong places. As a concept we still felt that the Shoot project was genius and are considering the upcoming Shoot Portobello as a smaller, more manageable event at which to next try our hand at some creative photography.

Final photo for the phrase "She Gently Stroked Their Hair"

The photos above were the four shots we selected as our final submissions for the phrases provided. Here are a few of the other photos from the day that I felt were particularly strong:

Runner up photo for "I Love You"

Runner up photo for "Dangerous Predators"

Runner up photo for "Their Stepmother"

Runner up photo for "I Love You"