Street Photography in Canary Wharf: A Surreal Experience

Shopping malls have never really been a go to destination for me but they are an incredible place to photograph people. First of all the lighting is generally the same and consistantly unworldly. Furthermore the ‘street’ funneling shoppers around various shops, cafes and bars is full of a range of different subjects that create different photographic opportunities. I would place the image above into my surreal category.

The remarkable shop mannequin, dressed in shorts, polo shirt, sunglasses and a sweater tied around its waist, stands rigidly inside a display window. Just outside, a tiny designer fluffy white dog walks cautiously across the polished floor. The contrast is immediate: the mannequin represents perfect, manufactured stillness while the dog embodies spontaneous life. The similarity of their pale colouring subtly links them visually despite belonging to entirely different worlds. This is street theatre with a backdrop, courtesy of the shops window dresser. The photograph suggests that modern urban life consists of countless parallel narratives; here it’s an opera with a security guard. A surreal chance coincidence, surely one of the defining pleasures of street photography.