Pictures from the first dozen or so frames of a film taken as I moved around London near the start of October 1994, working on other things. I only recorded locations for two of these but perhaps someone may recognise where the others were taken.
I think this is perhaps a Chinese takeaway rather than a fish and chip shop, though this counter could be a fish fryer and there does seem to be vinegar and salt on the counter. This is one of the few images in this section of the film that gives a location. Probably this was a corner shop as I seem to have taken the picture through a side window.
A workshop in shop premises facing thee street which provides an advert for the re-upholstery service and a convenient location to bring in your chairs to be re-upholstered.
We have had some of our chairs re-upholstered in recent years at a rather more orderly workshop than this and it made them as good as new. Good chair frames on older chairs were made to last, though re-upholstering them cost us more than buying cheap new chairs. Two frames after the previous image this could too have been in Norbury – but I could also have been on the other side of London. Please comment if you recognise it.
Perhaps had I taken this on medium or large format instead of 35mm I would be able to find more about the location from the local newspaper at right or the lable on the wheelie-bin. But all I can tell you is that it was somewhere in London.
It looks rather crudely fitted out as a shop, perhaps converted from some other use. At right is a blurred image of my hand, held to largely avoid reflections as I took this though a glass front window.
A side street, perhaps a market area off a high street somewhere in London. The blue palletsd look more substantial than some and are marked with the letter C as well as a short message illegible in my photo. The building they are in front of has a metal shutter, probably hiding a shopfront, and has some bright green paint which contrasts with the brown above that, as well as the oddly sloping straight drainpipes from its roof.
Thee very next frame after the blue pallets is of a street corner in Erith with a small parade of shops, probably built in the 1920s or 30s. Most were derelict by 2008 though only demolished in 2014. Three shops at the Pembroke Road end of the terrace were still there in 2025 but nothing had been built to replace those demolished.
An image where I liked the reflection and the ambiguity it introduces into the image. I think there may be two sets of reflections here. My focus was on the shel which ruans across the middle of the image with bottles – the leftmost is opf Table Salt, the next probably vinegar. Under it some pies are keeping warm but apparently also in a passing car while to their right are some kind of controls on equipment I don’t recognise and a boy riding a bike, given a red cap perhaps by a bottle label. I can see no trace of myself reflected in the image, susggesting I made it at an angle to the glass.
And for a final mystery (at least for today) a shop window with Chinese items in it as well as a fluorescent fitting without its tube. At the top I think is a parasol and hanging below it a short-sleeved top. I wonder now if this picture was taken through tinted glass as I cannot really find a convincing colour balance. My shadow taking the image appears at bottom right.
More colour work from 1994 shortly.
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