From the day
Perspective: The Street Photographer · Sound
The fog clings to the heavy wool coats of the dashers on the strand, thick enough to muffle the brassy stomp of "Blaze Away" drifting from a nearby shop. I adjust my lens as a shopkeeper drags a bally new vacuum cleaner across his stoop, the clatter competing with the shouts of newsboys praising that invisible transatlantic radio signal. A young lad stops in his tracks, eyes wide at a window display of Meccano sets, his fingers tracing the cold glass while the city hums with a mechanical rattle. I catch the flash of his brass buttons against the grey soot, clicking the shutter just as the grit of a coal-fired afternoon settles over us all.