Unrequited London

Four years ago, Sean Ferrer set out to capture a faithful photographic portrait of London, free of clichéd motifs and overdone compositions. Now with more than 13,000 followers to his blog, he says he has found the confidence to “get a bit more risqué.”

[Note: all images courtesy of London Life]

Those with even a passing interest in London – or architecture, photography, or urban design – will find much to love on London Life, a collection that dates back to August 2008. With the intent to “show people some of the things about London that you would only see by living here,” Ferrer has put together a gallery covering everything from art installations to Gay Pride festivities to the most mundane moments on the Tube.

Street scenes share space with cupcakes, squirrels, and the odd moustache, while close-ups of crocuses and dragonflies appear alongside dramatic vistas across the Thames. Anything in London is fair game for Ferrer’s camera, but he sticks to one rule on London Life: no reblogging.

“Quite early on, I decided I wasn’t going to reblog, because I wanted people to know they would find unique pictures here,” he says.

“I feel a little guilty, because part of the success on Tumblr comes from people reblogging your images, and I come across an awful lot that I would want to reblog if I had that kind of blog. But for London Life, it’s important to me that it’s all my own work.”

That work has evolved from amateur cell-phone snapshots to carefully calculated compositions with a proper Canon camera. Since starting the blog, Ferrer, 37, has taken a course on photography, resulting in a noticeable difference in the quality of images he posts.

“When I first got the camera, it was like being put in front of the controls of the Starship Enterprise with all the buttons and features,” he laughs. No longer a stranger to the tripod, he says, “I am very concerned with composition. I take pride in my pictures.”

Bolstered by the positive response he’s had on Tumblr, Ferrer has begun to seek out more striking subject matter in areas of London that aren’t often on photographic display.

“I’m thinking of going down to Brixton,” he says. “I’m looking at areas that are young and vibrant and a bit off-the-wall. You’ll see a lot of streets and buildings in my pictures, but actually I’m very interested in people. I think the future for London Life is more people. Now that I’m more confident with my camera, I’ll probably take some London landscape photos as well.”

When he’s not traversing London in search of the perfect image, the Nottingham native works as a recruitment and marketing manager for a local authority involved in foster care. Though his partner has urged him “to open a stall in Camden Market,” Ferrer says he prefers to keep photography as a passion rather than a profit-making pursuit.

“I’m doing it for me, for my own enjoyment,” he says. “I try not to blog for my followers in the sense that I don’t want to start thinking long and hard about what they want to see. As soon as I start doing that, my personal influence starts to disappear.”

Still, he says, it’s the Tumblr community that inspires him to keep shooting when he might otherwise lose momentum.

“They are the people that motivate me to keep on going,” he says.

Visit London Life at http://londonlife.tumblr.com. Ferrer has also produced a book of his images, London Life, available through his blog.