91Èȱ¬

A singer and musician who took up photography in lockdown has told how she used her pictures to show a "different side" to her hometown.

·¡²Ô²Ôè, who has worked with Earth, Wind & Fire and Lee "Scratch" Perry, used a classic film camera around Luton after her gigs were cancelled.

Her photos will be part of a socially distanced art exhibition in Germany.

"I would take walks and purposely get lost around the town to try and find things I hadn't seen before," she said.

"I wanted to show a different side to Luton while doing that.

"People wouldn't even recognise it as Luton."

Last year, ·¡²Ô²Ôè - real name Nakisha Esnard - won the talent quest at Luton Mela, attended by more than 40,000 people.

But gigs planned for Luton and London this year were cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Although she has been able to perform and work from home, she turned her focus to photography.

The 33-year-old used a Russian Fed 2 Rangefinder camera, which was she said was more than 50 years old "and comes with its own character".

She said: "Working with film is a lot slower than working with digital so it forced me to slow down and obviously lockdown has also forced us all to slow down and reset our focus a little bit, so using film really made sense to me."

At the start of lockdown the she responded to an appeal from the Arrival Room Gallery in Saarbrücken, Germany, for contributions to its social distancing arts (SODA) festival.

Her pictures of Luton will now feature in the fine art section and when restrictions are lifted she has been invited to exhibit the work in person. which she said would be "quite an experience".

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