A hit on
Instagram, Taylor’s quest for finding connections in crowds helped him overcome social anxietyThey could be snapshots of an earlier time. In Shane Taylor’s street photographs of London, we see gentlemen in trilbys stalking around Mayfair and women with powdered faces and rouged cheeks staring imperiously out the windows of grand Piccadilly cafes. A cursory glance might date these images to the 1950s. Take a closer look, however, and you begin to spot telltale details: the white earbuds, the smartphones, the New Routemaster buses in the background. Taylor, whose work pays homage to such greats as Robert Frank and Sergio Larrain, says he was “trying to get the classic look I love from those older photographers by
shooting with a certain type of film and camera, in areas of
London where you still see people in suits and hats”.