Mountains in London

For this project "Mountains in London" I have used the images I took in London during lockdown in March and April 2020 and photographs of mountains I found on Unsplash in order to create collages. The idea for this project came from the restrictions of lockdown, being stuck in the middle of the city with no access to wild nature. I love cites that are in the valleys and surrounded by mountains, like Skopje, Sofia or LA, what if London was a bit more like that?

In a quiet corner of Broadgate, looking through the train station and the buildings rising behind it I wondered - what if instead of sky-rises London had mountains ? I snapped a photo and rushed home to find a picture of a suitable mountain on Unsplash that I could edit into the scene. I loved the way the piece came out, a cliff face instead of City buildings, the city took on a whole new identity. I started looking through my archive to see if had taken pictures with a lot of high-rises that might be suitable. I had taken a few photos during lockdown since I went out for a few long walks on those fine days, although most of these photos did not have tall building, they did have bit of the sky. Instead of replacing buildings with mountains, I’ve decided I’ll include mountains in well known London locations instead. The next step was to find the right mountains, I have used Unsplash and have also found pictures I took on my travels that worked well. The most important bit is to get the right light direction, and if using Unsplash I want to make sure the picture weren’t overly edited. Combining London and mountains I created a collage series that brings a breath of fresh air to empty London streets.