Sometimes when I'm on the streets taking photos, I come across scenes that seem just too good to be true. While doing street photography, obviously I am on the lookout for interesting things, therefore I'm more alert to spot these things, but I'm still quite astonished that most people just walk by without as much as acknowledging the cosmic alignment of stars🐀

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True Story

London is a mouse infested town. You see them everywhere you go - the underground, on fields, in the street corners and of course in your home. This may come as a surprise to people that don't live in London, but mice are part and parcel of the city🐀

Less prominent, but also present, are rats. While mice are deceptively cute, rats don't hide who they are. In that way, they are more honest. They're rodents of the underworld who, like any other creatures, need to survive. Part of the survival is finding food, which they have to occasionally come to the surface to do🐀

Our streets here are full of rat food that used to be human food that has been nonchalantly discarded improperly. As such, London streets are heaven, and irresistible, to scavengers such as rats🐀

Anyhow, I came across this scene a few years ago. I was chauffeuring my mother around London while she shopped at her favourite local markets. This particular scene took place on one of the off streets of Peticoat Lane which is traditionally a fashion and clothing market. There are food stalls there which are frequented by city workers who, like most Londoners, treat the streets as one giant trash bin🐀

A rat in pain sight is at many risks. If one of the many street cats don't get it, then a dog or human might. Some of the dead rats observable on the streets would even have been killed indoors and casually thrown out unto the streets where it becomes someone else's problem🐀

What I found interesting from the photography point of view was the juxtaposition of the wall art and the dead rodent.

I did wonder which came first, and did someone set up the scene like this on purpose. I wouldn't put it past London's crazy artsy hipsters to be honest. They would do something like this for their art🐀

The rat obviously hadn't been there for too long judging by the state of decomposition. It could also be that a graffiti artist saw the dead rodent and quickly threw up a drawing. That is unlikely, however, judging by the fact that the ink wasn't fresh on the walls🐀

I concluded that it was most likely a random thing, and I just happened to spot it. Someone deliberately setting this up would probably have placed the rat closer to the art - perhaps directly below🐀

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What do you think? Random or set up?

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Peace and Love ✌🏿
Adé

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