I decided to walk off some frightfully rich Christmas treats, which took me on a little neighbourhood urban photography walk.

Normally I am quite an intentional photographer – I often do some research, or have a plan, however basic, and/or come up with creative briefs even for my personal photography shoots.

However, I use the format of a spontaneous photo walk when I want to inject some randomness into my images, because serendipity of visual experiences on the street seems to stimulate creativity. My little trick of not getting too overwhelmed is to set a micro focus for each walk – it is instinctively drawn from the first random thing or scene to which my attention will drift from the outset.

“There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.” – Jeff Bezos

This time I was struck by a curious parallelism of the red Tennent’s lager sign and the blue traffic sign with a white arrow on the way to St Enoch Centre, both intending the direct the onlooker. So the colours of red, blue and white defined my random urban photography focus for the walk in our neighbourhood.

Red Tennent's sign along the blue arrow traffic sign

I accidentally discovered the moving white staircase used to clean the gazillion meters of St Enoch glass – and I walked past that wall nearly every day!

Moving staircase used to clean large glass surfaces of St Enoch Shopping Centre, Glasgow

A woman with a red shopping bag walked with a man in blue past the building with white columns on Howard Street – here my attention was distracted by the building reflected in the parked black car.

People walking on Howard Street, with buildings reflected in the parked car in the foreground

I couldn’t help capturing blue and red bins at the back of the Scotia bar crowned by the peeling monochrome poster. Back alleys and the found objects I discover there are among my favourite subjects, so these bins and the stack of plastic containers fitted my walk micro-focus perfectly.

Back of the Scotia Bar, Glasgow
Two stacks of industrial containers at the back of the Scotia bar

My collection of urban randomness was topped up on Stockwell Street by an image of the abandoned shopping trolley in front of a red post box and a passerby in blue jeans.

Abandoned shopping trolley

Opposite M&S store I noticed a man by a bright red dry riser probably trying to roll a cigarette in the wind.

Man standing by a dry riser

I had my little walk and was quite pleased with my serendipitous neighbourhood finds. Just don’t feed me any sweetmeats until next Christmas!

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