Being a sociable person I do sometimes find photography to be a solitary occupation. So recently I joined an evening photo walk run by Wex Photo and Video. It was advertised as Street Photography but it turned out to be more niche and we were covering Street Portraiture. This is something I used to love in my earlier photography days when I would roam around London neighbourhoods taking photos of anything and anyone who caught my eye. Luckily I’m not too shy, so I’m always happy to ask people to pose for me and they’ve never yet said no. Of course, you’ve got to ‘read the room’ before doing this.

We met at 6pm in Vauxhall and Aneesa the leader briefed us. The theme was ‘London’ and since we only had 2 hours and had to work quickly we split into groups and photographed each other rather than try to find willing passers-by. In my case it was a group of three, so you’ll see a lot of my companions Henry and Gary in the following shots.

For this blog I’m going to take you along on the walk with me and the photos I post will be in the order I captured them so get yourself a coffee or tea and you can follow along. At the end of the post I’ll add links to everyone who was involved.

We were roughly following the northwards route of the train tracks from Vauxhall to Waterloo. This is an area that I would call day-to-day London. It’s not an area that many tourists would look for or even find. It mainly comprises residential and work buildings.

Our first stop was in a small neighbourhood park, not a showstopping park like Greenwich or Regents Park but rather a park people use for shortcuts, a bit of breathing space on their commute or an open space where you can meet your mates for a chat at the end of the working day. In all of these shots I kept tall buildings in the frame to show that although the space is green and open it’s surrounded by the city.

For all the following images you can click to see them full size in a lightbox. Hover over the image to see a comment.

As we moved out of the park and onto the streets there were some interesting buildings and backgrounds.

As we walked through the streets, there was opportunity to capture some of the surrounding buildings. In terms of architecture, this is a very varied area with a complete mix of old and new from block to block. Arches are a very familiar sight in London and can house a multitude of businesses such as garages, storage, gyms and shops. I can guess that some of the occupants are very interesting, to say the least!

Next we moved into an area defined by lots of arches and tunnels winding in and out under the railway lines above us.

As we walked along there was an allotment to use as another backdrop.

In addition to the railway tunnels, there were also construction tunnels to use as backdrops, taking us away from the rich, muted colours of the old bricks to white painted wood and metal scaffolding poles. There were also those red construction warning lights which I find strangely attractive in photos. Here is a link to my ‘A Flash of Red’ blog which features an earlier image of one.

Then out of the blue, in one of the tunnels, we came across an absolutely beautiful mosaic. I think I’ve seen this before, perhaps years ago. It’s in lovely condition. You can see where someone has spray painted near it but not on it. Maybe it’s regularly cleaned, I don’t know.

It seems that wherever I go in London, for whatever purpose, there’s always some art or architecture to be found. I tried to find some information about this mosaic and it turns out to be only one of 70 mosaics titled Blake’s Lambeth. They were installed between 2005 and 2015 in tunnels near Archbishop’s Park, close to Waterloo. Southbank Mosaics became the London School of Mosaic around 8 years ago but it sadly closed due to impending insolvency just a week ago on 29th August 2025!

That would be very interesting to go on a walk in the area to see all of them. I’ll have to put it on my extensive wish list!

Our next stop was Leake Street Tunnel, very close to Waterloo Station. I first discovered this on a photo walk (when we also had a professional model) and then a few years later I led a photo walk myself in the Waterloo area and in the tunnels. However, this walk put another slant on it when Aneesa suggested we take photos of some of the spray painters, after checking they were ok with it. If I go there again I’ll have learned a few lessons from this experience to use in the future and I’d love to try again.

After that, I took some close ups of Gary with the bright graffiti as a background.

I like to collect shots of interesting doorways so this is one for my collection.

Finally, to round off the evening I took a candid shot of Aneesa as she chatted to us at the end of the walk.

Aneesa Dawoojee @aneesaimages The award winning photographer who led the walk.

The walk was organised by Wex Photo and Video. I can thoroughly recommend any of their events. They were invaluable to me when I was first learning photography. The events paused for a while during the pandemic and afterwards but now they seem to be coming around more frequently. This walk was accompanied by a manager from Fixation in Vauxhall (a Wex sales and repair shop) and a Cannon representative who could answer any camera questions. You can find the link to Wex events page here. Even if you can’t attend an in-person event they have lots of online ones too.

The leader of the walk was Aneesa Dawoojee. Her advice on storytelling through photography was excellent. If you’d like to follow her, this is her Instagram link @aneesimages

Gary and Henry’s Instagram accounts are @gary.likes.photos and @henrydavis.design Click on their links to see their work or follow them.

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Loren x

Street Portraiture in Vauxhall