During our last visit to London, Denise and I decided to go to Portobello Road. We had never gone there and we thought it would be fun to visit the famous street market. It is really large, with a lot of things to see, both old and new.
This time I decided to switch to black and white, since I thought it would work well with antique stuff or anyway with the feeling of a street market. Though I have not been shooting that much in b/w, I love the technique and I would like to do more.
At Portobello Road you do not find only old used objects, more or less antique or rare, but also new clothes, cakes, food and street performers. The place is huge and, specifically during the weekend, it covers not only the street with the famous name, but also other side streets and areas, so plan to dedicate to it the whole day, if you want to take a good look at everything – or if you can brake it into two days for less hours, that might be even better.
I like to concentrate on details, so I often choose to zoom in and explore objects with my camera. I usually work with a large aperture to focus selectively just on one area or detail while the foreground and background are left soft. Many times just one part of an object is sharp while the rest goes immediately off focus.
