Nick Silk Street Photography
"I love street magic - our daily lives as humans and our pets! " Nick
Stare Down, Nick Silk 2023
Nick's street photo "Stare Down" was chosen by Martin Parr for the 2023 Martin Parr Foundation's Members Show - "Humour is Everywhere". The world renowned artist/photographer gave his critique of each member's work personally via a live Zoom event.
Selected! Film director Gurinder Chadha OBE, "Bend It Like Beckham" chose Nick's Southsea street photo "UKrainians" as her juried pick for the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2022 at the
Mall Galleries in London. Nicks's work was one of only 527 entries selected from over 7,000 entered for this prestigious prize.
Life is street
Night street theatre....A street photograph story.
What does the photographer think or want from a scene or subject on the street?
Like most photographers I remember every photo I take. Every artist knows the trials and tribulations of their pieces. Besides I am relatively new to street photography and the memory has not had time to dull!
Here is how the photo happened that night.
Street Photography gives a unique way of interpreting life we all share. I guess that is what as an artist all my life I am sensitive too. The happenings and apparently mundane have power if we look again - observe and interpret. There are moments of humour and more - I love them: something about the nature of our human existence can be revealed. I have rarely explored photography at night and the challenges and potential it brings.
Take my picture of the night workers. Dig a little deeper (like they are)! I remember, it was April - a cold night more reminiscent of winter - and these men were working with a rather impressive looking truck I felt - parked nearby. Most of us were finished for the day. It intrigued me that these often unobserved workers were working before our next day. Essential work.
It seemed like a piece of night theatre as I observed through my viewfinder crouched on the pavement. It felt like I had a free ticket to an unannounced show.
I did not have a tripod (this is street photography after all)! I knew what I wanted: the darkness illuminated by the floodlit men in orange transfixed by the study of the hole in the ground - as the traffic passed. Improvising - I steadied my camera the best way I could for a long exposure on the curved top of a pavement bollard.
I waited for the right moment just get the tail lights of the traffic - no oncoming headlights - nervously looking from my viewfinder waiting for the right traffic conditions. I took the image (in a one and a half second exposure if I remember) as cleanly as circumstances allowed without a tripod.
The workers were intrigued and afterwards we chatted (and to explain my fascination) - my work done - theirs...well in to the night ahead!
To me that night I found an added facet to the diamond that is street photography.
