Inflatable

A great article in todays paper about the use of tiny figures in photography to add emotional depth and context to the images used predominantly in photojournalism. Its particularly prevalent at the moment, no shot of a street or vista is entirely empty, there’s always a figure or two scurrying past, usually in a face mask for added fore-shadowing.

For me I’ve always avoided that trope, it’s harder to capture technically, requires more time and there are always possible privacy issues. Prior to the current crisis I liked capturing a busy city of 9m people, without any of of those people. I prefer a happy accident which leads me to todays submission, from August last year. I was on the beach in Northern France recovering from a long bike ride. I though i’d snap the scene for reference, it was a decent beach not far from the Tunnel but it was only when looking back over the image I spotted our little friend in the top right corner - Hello Sailor!