City streets,  Lens-Artists,  London,  Photographic techniques,  Plants,  Travel galleries

Gallery: around the block

January 11, 2026 / 60 Comments

To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.

Elliott Erwitt

I’ve used this quote before, it’s a favourite of mine. I often find myself drawn to photograph the little details I see around me, whether close to home or on my travels. So much so that I often come home to find I have lots of photos of the details of a building and none of the building as a whole to provide context. I wonder why? I think perhaps that I see more interesting compositions in the smaller things, such as patterns or textures. And I can eliminate distractions and elements that I find less appealing.

Whatever the reason, this focus on details meant that Anne’s Lens Artists challenge this week resonated with me. She suggests that ‘that there is always something to photograph’. And she asks us to look around and use our imagination, while restricting ourselves to a single walk and to the same block. So this morning I set out for a short (very short) walk. It proved to be a very interesting exercise and I’m grateful to Anne for proposing it.

I think our London blocks are relatively small, especially in the area where I live. The Victorian terraced houses are quite tightly packed and intersected with side streets at regular intervals. Our house is near a corner, so I had a choice of three directions to walk in, and three different blocks to ‘circumnavigate’. I chose to walk around just one of them, a total of fewer than 600 steps, and took 25 photos in total. A couple were duds: one out of focus, one too uninteresting, one too similar to others in the set. From those that remained I’ve chosen thirteen to share here. It’s a built-up area so some are of man-made objects (walls, lampposts etc.) while the natural ones are from neighbours’ front gardens or street trees. Many blend the natural with the man-made, showing how nature finds a home in any suitable nook or cranny.

Disclaimer: today is a dull one in January so I’ve used Nik Color Efex to give these shots a bit more ‘punch’ and brightness.

Mossy wall (the same one as in my featured shot above)

Moss on a gatepost

Street tree root

Camellia bud in a front garden

Laurel berries in another front garden

Wisteria seed pod

Finding a crack between pavement and wall in which to grow

Another wall, another crack

Peeling paint on a shop front

More peeling paint, this time on a lamppost

Sticker on a lamppost, South Ealing Road

Rusting window grille

All the above photos were taken on a single block in South Ealing, January 2026

60 Comments

Do share your thoughts, I'd love to hear from you! And please include your name in case WP marks you 'anonymous' - thank you