Street Photo of the week by Matt Stuart
Street Photo of the week by Matt Stuart
Matt Stuart is from North West London where he was born in the 70s. His first involvement with Photography was when his dad got him two photography books as a gift. He was in his late teens at the time and became fascinated by the works of Henri Cartier Bresson and Paul Frank. Since that pivotal moment Matt has been a practicing Street Photographer for more than 18 years! He manages to capture unique candid moments using his patience, his optimism and his small camera to his advantage. Even though for commercial work Matt uses a digital camera, for Street Photography he prefers shooting old school and uses a mechanical Leica MP with one prime 35mm lens and his favourite Fujifilm Superia 200/400 film. Matt’s approach to Street Photography is a humorous one. He has a talent for seeing moments that when captured through his lens bring a smile the the viewers face.
Matt Stuart is a member of the In-Public Street Photography collective, the first ever of it’s kind. In the past we have featured other members of iN-PUBLiC such as Blake Andrews, Maciej Dakowicz, Mark Powell and Trent Parke. You should surely visit his bio page on In-Public and give it a read. I think that he has one of the funniest photographer biography pages I have ever read!
You can see more of Matt Stuart’s photographic work on his website at http://www.mattstuart.com/ and of course on his dedicated page on the iN-PUBLiC collective website at http://www.in-public.com/MattStuart.
Trafalgar Square
Matt Stuart is one of those exceptional Street Photographers that have shared with the wider Street Photography community more than one iconic image. So going through his photos trying to select one that spoke to me was a very hard task because they all do! For this week’s feature, I decided to go with what I consider his most famous and defining photograph. This is my personal opinion, but when I think of Matt Stuart, this is the photo that comes to mind. Ok, this one and the one with the peacock, oh and the one with the copper with the shadow mustache, oh and the one with a huge hand picking a guys nose, oh… well, you understand where I am going to with this. Matt makes awesome photos!
Anyway, the photo featured today is called Trafalgar Square and it has been used as the cover photo for the book Street Photography Now by Thames & Hudson, a definitive guide to Street Photography since the time it was first published in 2011 I think. What we see here is a masterful capture of synchronized walkers of different styles, walking in the same direction seemingly at the same pace. The way Matt Stuart has made this photo is insanely awesome because of many reasons. First of all he has made this shot from a rat’s eye view, guiding our focus to the level where everything is happening, the feet. Then using the leading line provided to him by the sidewalk he has managed to guide our focus again, this time to the middle of the photograph. But the magic of the photo has only just started! Wait, is that a pigeon walking with the people? Is this a race? Is the pigeon ahead? Is the leading line the end of that race and the pigeon won? And those shapes! Triangles, within triangles, all the way from the front levels of the photo to the back. Levels! Yes, it has levels too! Many of them.
This is a photograph that is a feast for one’s eyes. Composed so perfectly by Matt, with the perfect point of view, the perfect leading line, the perfect noetic shapes, the similar black clothing and shoes of the walkers and to disrupt it all, to make our brains explode with questions, a pigeon with red feet prancing along everyone else. Amazing work! Oh yes, this is shot with film, so no LCD to compose looking comfortably down. Just masterful skill!
Thank you Matt Stuart!
About this weekly feature
As you know, every Friday we feature a photograph of a Street Photographer on our website. The Street Photographer that is featured is selected by the Street Hunters team.
If you would like to have one of your shots featured on our website, then please contact us by visiting https://www.streethunters.net/contact/, or join us on our Flickr Group or subscribe to our GooglePlus Page.
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