A year or so ago now a good friend of mine asked me if I had ever heard of Shoot Experience, and was I interested in acompanying her on one of their shoot days. Naturally I jumped at the chance, and with typical speed it took over a year to actually sign up and do to the day.

Shoot experience organise various day shoot trips, and the one we did was “Shoot Shoreditch”, perfect as we both live right round the corner from Shoreditch. Not so great for Olly and Nicky, who trecked over all the way from somewhere in West London for the day to complete our team.

I was a little bit worried when I looked at thier T&C page. Seems they demand the right to sell any photos you enter for comercial purposes, and I have heard enough horror stories of photo competitions and events being run as ways to build up photo libraries…, but I decided to give it ago anyway. At the day they claimed this was because they are trying to help the people who attend the days earn money from their hobby, which would be a great thing for them to be doing – but untill someone tries to buy one of my photos – I can’t tell you how true that is. They did however give us the option to opt out of granting our model releases, and giving them exclusive rights to the photos. So I do get to show you what we shot!

We were given the theme of “light” and 10 clues, 7 pointing to locations, and 3 creative clues; a map, and five hours to go and be creative. This is what we got:

Once generating “out of the dust light and power” -  Nowadays home to acrobatic flight and squirty flowers

This strange phrase refers to the motto of the Vestry of St Leonard Shoreditch Electric Light Station, which is now a pretty cool circus school.

A sun powered beacon for the lost and Foundry

Just opposite the Foundry Bar is a new solar powerd art installation called the Beacon

Electrifying Shoreditch with Eddison’s invention since 1920

Eddison of course invented the light bulbe, and there is a famous bar in Shoreditch called the Electric Showrooms, with the name in lightbulbs, however, this Bluu bar nearby provided a much nicer photo

Olympic Torch
Ok, maybe we were not as creative on this one as we could have been.

Underground Overground near the Great Eastern Corner
We actually got this one wrong. Its meant to be a overground and underground train lifted up onto the top of a building nearby – but quite frankly that was dull, and this is really quite a cool architecture shot

Uncover an explosive plot on Hoxton Street

On Friday, October 26th 1604  Lord Monteagle received the following letter at his house, on Hoxton Street:

My lord out of the love i bear to some of youre frends i have a care of your preseruasion therefore i would advise you as you tender your life to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance at this parliament for god and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time and think not slightly of this advertisement but retire youre self into youre control where you may expect the event in saftey for though there be no appearance of any stir yet i say they shall receive a terrible blow this parliament and yet they shall not see who hurts them this councel is not to be condemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm for the danger is passed as soon as you have burnt the letter and i hope god will give you the grace to make good use of it to whose holy protection i commend you.”

More Light More Power

I really really liked this photo. I like the idea and the execution, but I don’t think anyone at who saw it on the slide show at the end of the day got it

Here comes a candle to light you to bed

This refers to the lyrics of a populer nursery rhyme:

“Oranges and lemons”, say the bells of St. Clement’s

“You owe me three farthings”, say the bells of St. Martin’s

“When will you pay me?” say the bells of Old Bailey

“When I grow rich”, say the bells of Shoreditch

“When will that be?” say the bells of Stepney

“I do not know”, says the great bell of Bow

Here comes a candle to light you to bed

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

Chip chop chip chop – The last man’s dead.

The bells of Shoreditch are in the St Leonards Church, the photo was taken on the front steps.

Beam me up
We got creative on this one

Barbarella’s bubbling force sheds new light on Kingsland Road

We one a prize for this one – the best answer to the clue

This was taken outside of Barbarellas Shoe, Belt and Bag shop. However apparently this clue was meant to point to the Mathmos light shop (!?!)

It was a really great day, and we took some awesome photos. As long as you don’t mind them making some money off of your photos (if they are good enough) then well worth a day, just try to bring your umbrealla!