City walk - My Sophie Calle approach

I know Sophie Calle seems like a bit of a crazy stalker but I find what she does really interesting, it allows her and us what other people see and live like so I had a go at following a stranger in Manchester to see where I would end up, to see what journey they took and to see what they looked at and did on the way. I was on the train on the way to Manchester with my friend Janine, I told her to take photos of me taking photos of this stranger, I didn't yet know who I would follow but I knew we both had to be ready as soon as we got off the train because the perfect subject might be heading out the door at that very moment! I wanted someone who stood out a bit so I wouldn't lose them too easily, I was picturing someone wearing something really bright, I thought not only would it be harder to lose them but the photos would look better too and the focal point would be made clear. I genuinely did follow a real stranger and took photos of them, I sound like a massive stalker right now but it's just for photography purposes! Before I started I was really excited to go on 'somebody elses' journey. Me and Janine stood in the train station looking for the perfect person, a couple of people with bright coats caught my eye but they always seemed to be heading to a train rather than out the door of the train station into the city so we then decided to stand outside then we saw an old man who we then chose to be the subject because of how slow he was walking, we knew he would be very hard to lose as he was walking very, very slow. Janine video'd me taking photos of him at the start because we thought it would be good for getting screen shots from rather than her taking lots and lots of photos of my taking photos of him.

The photos which don't have the man in them are the sites he stopped and looked at. It sounds strange but I got quite attatched to this guy, it felt like I knew him even after a few minutes of following. It became really amusing when he did simply everyday things like turn around or look towards a loud noise. I found myself getting excited to where he would lead us to. He walked really slowly so sometimes we would have to stop and wait for him to get a fair distance away before continuing. Dispite his slow walking, we still lost him when he went into Marks and Spencers. I suggested we waited outside because I know shops don't like it when you take photos inside sometimes, so we waited for a couple of minutes before Janine pointed out that they had a second exit, we quickly rushed into the shop to find the guy but he was know where to be seen! It was a very short journey of following, it started outside Victoria train station and ended up in M&S. I found this adventure quite fun, exciting and humourous so after this guy we decided to latch onto someone else, this didn't last long as we lost them in a little news agents some how. We kept on loosing the people whenever they entered a shop so decided to give up and stop being stalkers.