Street Artist - Allen Gardens, Spitalfields

Street Artist, originally uploaded by louisberk.

I've taken to walking through Pedley Street (off Brick Lane) and through Allen Gardens in the morning, often stopping to photograph the old Shoreditch station. This is the corner which is normally occupied by some pretty tough looking street people pulling on cans of lager most times of the day. However, they are not really early birds, that is until last Thursday.

I was photographing the pairs of discarded trainers which have been lobbed over the old lampost and into the trees when what I can only politely describe as a 'street person' called out to me. With a little trepidation, I figured one-on-one he was probably OK. He didn't tell me his name but he proudly insisted he was an 'artist' and that he was responsible for the display of shoes hanging from the tree.

Eyeing up my camera he asked if I wanted a picture of him. This is only the third or fourth time in the past 3 years that someone has asked me to photograph them and each time the results have been worthwhile so I readily agreed. Even so, I did not want to spend a lot of time so after a couple of hastily composed and taken shots I left but not before he touched me for some 'spare change'.

He is either a lost soul, tossed around on the unpredictable sea of life, or an opportunist. I got his picture and he got either breakfast of his next can of lager.

Panasonic GF-1, with Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5 (both pictures)