An ever changing canvas

Featuring street photographers Mark Fearnley and Valérie Jardin

Photographs by Mark Fearnley

Episode 481 is out (available wherever you get your podcasts) and the mailbag returns today alongside my guest Mark Fearnley, a London-based street photographer known for his minimalist, fine art approach to urban storytelling, where lines, light, and shadow play leading roles. In this episode, Mark shares the story of how he found his visual voice, why the city of London in particular remains his ever-changing canvas, and how his work challenges the traditional idea of what street photography should look like.

Also, in the monthly feature Teach Me Street, Valérie Jardin answers what ‘makes an image,’ and unpicks how photographers can recognise that they have captured something really quite special. Plus, Extra Miler Dennis Linden sets a new assignment for the month.

From the mailbag two Chris’s, Articulate and Parsons celebrate the sights and sounds of our Indian special, Charles Mason reminds us of the power of hands, and how much hands say about us in a portrait, plus Lin Gregory has important and special thoughts about safety for women photographers on the paths we tread.

Read Lin’s full Substack article, Safety in Nature.

The art of slowing down (and a half-sunken boat)

A river claims a cruiser. Pic: Neale James

The light’s spilling through the trees along the canal towpath as I walk to record the podcast this morning. Low, amber, and warm, the sort that makes you feel like the world’s still stretching, not quite ready to speak yet. Everything feels slower. Softer. Almost as if someone’s pressed pause for a moment so you can breathe.

I’ve been thinking a lot about walking and the pace of making pictures recently. It might be because I’ve just come back from India, where the topic came up continually in conversation. (Side note, yes, India 2026 is already looking lively. If you’re one of the ‘I’ll definitely come’ folk and haven’t sent back your form yet, you might want to get a slight wriggle on.)

What I love about these early starts is how the world hasn’t quite found its volume yet. There’s space to notice things. Not just look, but really see. The sun is quietly doing its early warm-up stretches.

Yesterday, I passed a man walking in the opposite direction while I was out with Sir Barkalot. I’d paused to photograph a little boat moored at the edge of the canal. It’s been sinking, slowly, almost artistically, for about three months now. A tiny thing, probably sleeps two at a push.

He looked puzzled.

“Why photograph that,” he asked?

I told him I’ve been following its gentle decline like a visual diary. And though he still looked slightly baffled by the half-sunk boat fascination, he nodded when I talked about slowing down. That landed.

If I’d had my fluffy windjammer with me, I’d have recorded our conversation, because it reminded me again why I make photographs when I walk. Yes, it slows the pace, but more than that, it gives me permission to see. To really see. And in that act, something else happens. Anxiety backs off. Thoughts quieten.

This boat, oddly, made me think about that. It’s only still because the water in its hull weighs it down. The anchor’s long gone. But it’s not adrift, just… quiet. Settled. Stuck, but somehow now part of the scenery.

Making photographs like this isn’t about chasing perfect frames. It’s about connection. With the world, yes, but also with yourself. And sometimes, on mornings when the light is kind, and the breeze barely stirs the leaves, it’s a reminder that peace doesn’t always need a passport. Sometimes it’s just around the next bend in the path, waiting to be noticed.

Thank you for supporting this podcast through your subscriptions.

My kindest,

Neale and Sir. Barkalot