I’ve done the same with photographs, Regan. You make one more adjustment thinking you’re improving it, then realise you’ve edited away the very thing that made you stop in the first place. Knowing when enough is enough is a skill in itself.

I find the same thing with photography, Hollis. If I arrive with the composition already in my head, I can miss what the light and the place are actually offering. Giving it a little time often leads to a photograph I couldn’t have planned beforehand.

It really does, Hollis. When you’ve spent time simply watching a place, you start noticing small changes that would be easy to miss if you arrived already chasing a particular picture. That attention becomes part of the photograph.

Yes, Regan. The little interruptions and overlaps are often what make a street photograph feel true to the moment. Clean everything up too much and you risk losing the character that made you stop in the first place.

That’s how I see it, Regan. A perfectly clear junction might have been tidier, but it wouldn’t have felt like the London I was standing in. The movement and interruptions are what give the photograph its energy.

That’s a great way of putting it, Hollis. Being there first means you can respond to whatever happens rather than arriving with the photograph already decided. Some of my favourite frames have come from something I never expected to photograph.

I like that comparison, Hollis. The Porsche was impossible to ignore, but I didn’t want it to become the whole photograph. Keeping the people, cobbles and surrounding architecture in the frame lets it feel like something I happened across in London rather than a photograph specifically about the car.

The green Porsche caught my eye first, Regan, but it was the way it sat against the cobbles and older architecture that made me stop. The people moving through added that sense of everyday London I enjoy photographing. I didn’t want to wait for a cleaner moment because, for me, that passing street life was part of the picture.

I painted a rusted old Ford once and spent half the session trying not to make it look like I was painting a car, if that makes sense. What you did here feels like the same impulse turned around the other way. The Porsche isn't shy, that green won't let it be, but you're holding it inside a place that has its own weight. The monument, the people crossing, the geometry of where those streets come together. It reads like a London moment that happens to have a loud car in it, not a car picture that happens to be in London. That's harder to pull off than it sounds.

That bright green against the cobblestones and brick is working hard for you. The way you framed it with people moving through and the cab in back keeps it from being just a car shot, it sits in the place instead of dominating it.

I've never shot cars and wouldn't know a classic Porsche from anything else on the road, but I like how you let the location hold as much weight as the subject. The history you added about the sundial being gone for two centuries and then rebuilt gives the whole thing more to stand on.

What made you stop for this one instead of waiting for a different moment at the junction?