Notting Hill Carnival | >Re-PHOTO

Chariot Festival, Olympic Site and Notting Hill

Chariot Festival, Olympic Site and Notting Hill. Sunday 27th August 2006, sixteen years ago was a busy day for me, travelling to East Ham to photograph a colourful Hindu festival, then on to Stratford for a short walk along the High Street and Bow Back Rivers, before taking the underground and ending up on Ladbroke Grove for the Children’s Day of the Notting Hill Carnival.

It was part of a very full few days for me, having got back to London after a couple of weeks in Paris and a few days with family in Beeston. Friday I’d put my folding bike on the train to Greenhithe and spent a day cycling around there and Swanscombe, Saturday I’d walked around 12 miles on the London Loop and after the events here on Monday I’d returned to Notting Hill for the carnival itself, after which I needed a few days rest. The text here is taken from My London Diary – with a few corrections, appropriate capitalisation and some additional comments. There are some more details in the captions on the picture pages of these events.

Sri Mahalakshmi Temple Chariot Festival – East Ham

Sunday morning found me in East Ham, where the Hindu Sri Mahalakshmi Temple was holding its chariot festival. It was a colourful and friendly event, but I soon felt I’d taken enough pictures and left.

It’s hard to show the flames when the offerings of food are made to the god, and difficult to catch the colour of the occasion.

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Lea Navigation and Bow Back Rivers – Stratford

On my way back from East Ham I stopped off at Bromley-by-Bow and walked up to Stratford High Street and along the rivers and channels there.

Parts were so thickly covered with bright green growth that they looked as if I could have walked along them.

There was another site demolished on the high street, with new housing starting to go up.

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Notting Hill Carnival – Childrens Day – Notting Hill

But the big event of August is always Notting Hill Carnival, and I was there both on the Sunday afternoon for Childrens’ Day and for the main event on the Monday, shooting both black and white film and colour digital.

[I noted back in 2006 that when I would get round to processing the black and white film is “anyone’s guess”. I think it was around ten years later that I finally admitted I wasn’t going to develop the chromogenic black and white films myself and the chemicals were probably past their best and I sent them for commercial processing. Though by then I wasn’t sure whether I had taken them in 2006 or 2007. But back to my 2006 post.]

Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older, but I didn’t get the same buzz from this year’s event as in previous years, though most of the same things seemed to be around.

Perhaps this was the problem; most of them did seem to be the same, two years on from when I last photographed the event. Last year, 2005, I tried to go, dragging myself to the station with a knee injury, but the pain was too much to continue. This year my knee held out, though I was glad to sink into a seat on the Underground at Latimer Road at the end of the day.

I didn’t take many colour pictures on Children’s Day, and most weren’t of children, and I think I probably didn’t stay long, but there are many more on the pages which follow on from there taken the following day.

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Notting Hill Carnival 2006

I’d missed Carnival in 2005 for the first year since 1990. I’d tried to get there despite a painful knee injury a few days earlier, but had had to abandon the journey; the quarter mile walk from home to railway station ending with me collapsing in pain and deciding it just wasn’t possible.

By 2006 I had a considerably improved camera, the Nikon D200, still DX APS-C format (Nikon were still adamant it was all you needed) but with a hugely improved viewfinder and 10.2Mp. And a rather wider range of lenses, though for carnival I only took the remarkably versatile Nikon 18-200mm zoom (equivalent to 27-300mm). Looking at the full-size images its hard to fault the lens quality, though it had more distortion than prime lenses, but this was of no consequence for these pictures.

The other big change was in processing software. Pixmantec had brought out its ‘Raw Shooter’ software and it was streets ahead of anything else. So good that Adobe had just bought out the company as it couldn’t face the competition. Even though this gave them the Pixmantec raw processing engine it was some years and several versions of Lightroom later that reached a similar level.

As in most years I went to Notting Hill on both the Sunday – Children’s Day – and the Bank Holiday Monday for the Carnival proper. I’d photographed the Sri Mahalakshmi Temple Chariot Festival earlier on Sunday, as well as taking a few pictures around Stratford, so I didn’t arrive until after 2pm on the first day, and for some reason I only put a few of the pictures on My London Diary. But there are rather more from Monday, and I’d decided to concentrate more on the actual procession than in most earlier years.

More pictures on My London Diary.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Notting Hill Carnival 2003

2003 was the first year I photographed Notting Hill Carnival using a DSLR, a Nikon D100. It was primitive by current standards with a small, dim viewfinder image and on 6.1Mp with a half-frame size sensor. Nikon at the time swore that what they called the APS-C sensor was all that you needed for a professional digital camera, and although they were right, later brought out ‘full-frame’ cameras to keep up with the Canons and others in what was really a marketing rather than technology led decision.

I’d switched to Nikon for the D100 but was still also using various Leica mount film cameras as well as occasionally my pair of Olympus OM4 cameras for both of which I still had a range of lenses from 15mm to 90mm for Leica and 21 to 200mm for Olympus. But for the Nikon all I had was a 24-80 zoom, bought largely because it was one of the cheapest Nikon lenses available. On the smaller sensor this was equivalent to 36-120mm full-frame, so meant I was working with no really wide lens.

The colour quality of these images is also rather limited, not by the camera but mainly by the raw processing software then available and also by my relative inexperience in using it. If I have time one day I will find the raw files from my backup disks and reprocess them. But although I think they are a little drab I think they still show the carnival spirit.

And here’s just one I rather like from the following year – by which time I and the processing software had improved a little.

More at the bottom of the August 2003 My London Diary Diary page
And for those from August 2004.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Notting Hill 1990 Colour

I’d forgotten when I wrote yesterday’s post that I had actually taken some colour pictures as well as the black and white of Notting Hill Carnival in 1990. I was then working in colour with colour negative film and I think the colour in some of these images is a little on the drab side. I think I found them less interesting than the black and white.

Notting Hill Carnival, Notting HIll, 1990 90c8-04-96-positive_2400 — Notting Hill 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, Notting HIll, 1990 90c8-04-5-positive_2400 — Notting Hill 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, Notting HIll, 1990 90c8-04-84-positive_2400 — Notting Hill 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, Notting HIll, 1990 90c8-04-4-positive_2400 — Notting Hill 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, Notting HIll, 1990 90c8-04-10-positive_2400 — Notting Hill 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, Notting HIll, 1990 90c8-04-1-positive_2400 — Notting Hill 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, Notting HIll, 1990 90c8-04-43-positive_2400 — Notting Hill 1990

As usual, clicking on any of the images will take you to a larger version in the album, and you can also browse the other images in it. You can find colour from other years in the album as well, though in a rather strange order as I found them.

Notting Hill 1990

This weekend should have been Notting Hill Carnival. But not this year thanks to Covid. I’ll post instead a few pictures from earlier years over the next few days. The first time I photographed there was in 1990, and I was only taking pictures in black and white.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1990. Peter Marshall 90-822-44_2400 — Notting Hill Carnival 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, 1990. Peter Marshall 90-822-63_2400 — Notting Hill Carnival 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, 1990. Peter Marshall 90-825-52_2400 — Notting Hill Carnival 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, 1990. Peter Marshall 90-826-24_2400 — Notting Hill Carnival 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, 1990. Peter Marshall 90-822-35_2400 — Notting Hill Carnival 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, 1990. Peter Marshall 90-828-45_2400 — Notting Hill Carnival 1990

Notting Hill Carnival, 1990. Peter Marshall 90-818-46_2400 — Notting Hill Carnival 1990

These and more are from my album ‘Notting Hill Carnival – the 1990s’ and clicking on any of the images above will take you to a larger version in the album, from where you can browse the rest of the collection.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Notting Hill in colour – 1997 Part 4

A final selection of my pictures from 1997 when I mainly worked with colour.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-135_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-145_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-158_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-163_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-174_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-182_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-184_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-191_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-196_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 98c8-nh-221_2400

I hope you have enjoyed my pictures which I think show something of the spirit of carnival, something sadly missing at the moment.

You can see more of my pictures from carnival in Notting Hill Carnival – the 1990s on Flickr.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Notting Hill in colour – 1997 Part 3

Another set of pictures from the 1997 Notting Hill Carnival.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-075_2400

Various organisations take part in carnival, including religious groups, notably The Nation of Islam,

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-091_2400

and some trade unions who show a little more of the carnival spirit.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-099_2400

It’s a time for dancing on the streets, and at times its difficult to hold the camera steady, with music you don’t just hear but which sets your internal organs vibrating and even the tarmac under your feet.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-101_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-109_2400

It’s hard to capture the intensity of the event, and a kind of glorious disorder on the streets.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-113_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-126_2400

Some people are insistent that I take their picture – and of course I oblige.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-131_2400

But it all gets a bit too much for some. And after some hours I get to feel rather like this and decide to go home and rest. Because after the Children’s Day on the Sunday comes the main day on Monday when the streets are more crowded and the dancing more frenetic.

More carnival pictures:

Notting Hill Carnival – the 1990s
Notting Hill Panoramas – 1992

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Notting Hill in colour – 1997 Part 2

Here are a few more from Ladbroke Grove in 1997, I think all from the first day of the event, the Children’s Day on the Sunday.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-040_2400

I think all of these pictures were taken with a 28mm or 35mm lens, probably on a Minolta CLE (the improved successor to the Leica CL) using Fuji Super G 400 colour negative film.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-047_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-056_2400

I did take more photographs of the children, but while the costumes may be cute and sometimes very colourful (though not in this example) they generally lack the exhuberance of older revellers and I found them of less interest. There are more of the children in the album on Flickr.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-058_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-066_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-072_2400

I took several pictures of this young woman holding a child as she danced beside one of the floats pumping out fairly deafening music, and this one I think shows her and the child both enjoying the moment.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-073_2400

But the second frame puts her better into the whole siuation, part of the crowd moving down the street with the lorry.

All these pictures were taken within a few minutes of each other, and I made many more during the two days of carnival – and will post more another day. As usual you can see any of them larger in the album by clicking on them – and can then continue to view more if you wish.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Notting Hill in colour – 1997

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-003_2400

I find it hard to believe I took no colour pictures at Notting Hill Carnival in 1996, but if I did I cannot find the negatives, though it is possible that they are somewhere in my loft, still in the envelope with the prints as they came back from the processing lab. I did go to carnival, and made some black and white images, but probably I had come to a decision not to work in colour.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-005_2400

The following year, 1997, I’ve found no very few black and white negatives, perhaps just when I was finishing off a couple of films still in the cameras, and nothing of any real interest, but a note on the contact sheet tells me that I worked in colour that year. So here are some of the results.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-008_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-015_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-019_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-024_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-028_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1997 97c8-nh-030_2400

I’ll post another set from 1997 shortly, but you can see them all in my album Notting Hill Carnival – the 1990s which has around 80 more pictures from that year. As usual, clicking on the images in this post will take you to the image in the album – much larger for the landscape format images.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Notting Hill colour 1994

Notting Hill Carnival, 1994. Peter Marshall 94c8-nh-125-positive_2400

In 1994 I set out to photograph carnival both in black and white and in colour, and while my colour images concentrate on the people in the procession and their costumes, it was a little more varied than in previous years, with more overlap with the black and white work.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1994. Peter Marshall 94c8-nh-111-positive_2400

So I took some pictures of the people watching the carnival in colour and perhaps rather more than in previous years where the carnival was the background rather than the main subject.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1994. Peter Marshall 94c8-nh-108-positive_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1994. Peter Marshall 94c8-nh-104-positive_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1994. Peter Marshall 94c8-nh-097-positive_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1994. Peter Marshall 94c8-nh-094-positive_2400

Notting Hill Carnival, 1994. Peter Marshall 94c8-nh-078-positive_2400

I was working with colour negative film, and exposures were a little more critical than with black and white, which has greater latitude. There are some I could not get good prints from in the darkroom, and although digitising makes it a little easier there are still some where the colour is not as good as I would like.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1994. Peter Marshall 94c8-nh-048-positive_2400

But despite these problems I was encouraged by the results , and the following year for various reasons photographed Notting Hill almost entirely in colour.

Notting Hill Carnival, 1994. Peter Marshall 94c8-nh-018-positive_2400

There are around 60 colour pictures from 1994 beginning some way down page 6 of my Notting Hill in the 90s album and continuing onto the next page. Clicking on any of the pictures above will also take you to larger versions in this album.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.