Simon Roberts and The Olympics

I first came across Simon Roberts when he exhibited We English in London last year.  I didn't actually get to the exhibition myself but I saw his collection of work online.  I liked the way he portrayed the everyday and quirky sides to English life in his series.  Often these sides of life are forgotten as being quintessentially English and I think he captures the old and new in a light-hearted way.

Images from this series can be seen here
http://we-english.co.uk/gallery.html

When I saw that Roberts was on Twitter I started following him and a few weeks ago he tweeted a link to his images published in the FT covering the Olympics.

With all the hype and excitement around this event, I was keen to see how Roberts tackled the subject.  We had all seen several images of the construction of the Olympic Park but what could be potentially captured during the event remained to be very much seen.

I like his use of the country/urban contrast in many of the shots from the second week FT magazine featured his images.  I particularly like the beach volleyball shot with Big Ben in the distance.  Choosing whether to include London landmarks in shots of event for me has always been difficult.  You have to be careful to ensure they don't take over the picture and leave your subject overlooked.  In this shot I feel he has got the balance right.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d89969aa-d6d3-11e1-ba60-00144feabdc0.html#axzz21sX6ZTzn

http://simoncroberts.com/news/tearsheets/olympics-week-2/

http://simoncroberts.com/news/tearsheets/the-london-olympics-part-3/

http://simoncroberts.com/news/tearsheets/the-london-olympics-part-4/

I feel he captured the mood that swept across London for 16 days where everyone became an expert of varying degrees on a myriad of sports.  There is a good mix of outside/inside shots, old and young, different sports, behind the scenes and spectators.

I feel that looking at these images again will be beneficial later for my studies on this course.  At the moment I am focussing on shooting people aware.