1994 | >Re-PHOTO

More Colour from 1994 in Enfield

More Colour from 1994 in Enfield: In More Ponders End, Enfield Wash, Palmers Green & Brimsdown 1994 I posted a set of pictures made in the first three months of the year. This post includes some more taken in March 1994 mainly along by the Lea Navigation in the London Borough of Enfield and ends with a couple taken in April or May.

My archives from back then are a little disorganised but I’ll try hard not to post any that I’ve previously posted, although a one here is from a site where I’ve previously posted a panoramic images.

*Factory, Lea Navigation, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-2-45*

The Lea Valley was an important industrial area of London well into the 20th century and had been the source of some key inventions, including the start of the electronics industry. Some of the factories were along the river, perhaps originally on sites that had made use of its wharves, but now all reliant on road transport, with all of Brimsdown between the railway and the canal being huge industrial estates off Mollinson Avenue.

*Factory, Lea Navigation, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-2-21*

Here the separation of industry from the canal was emphasized with a concrete fence, now rather decaying at the edge of the bank and tell fence topped with barbed wire at an angle to keep intruders from the canal out of the site.

I don’t remember exactly where at Brimsdown this factory was, but like the rest of the industry here it will since have been demolished, replaced by large distribution sheds, some set well back from the water and almost hidden by trees and bushes growing unfettered along the water’s edge.

*Hairdressers, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-2-42*

There are houses and a few shops at Brimsdown on the other side of the railway line in what is perhaps part of Enfield Wash, which then included this hairdressers. The Sun’s March 1994 topless ‘Page 3 girl‘ in the calendar (also part reflected in the mirror at right) confirms the date of the picture.

*Columbia Wharf, Ponders End, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-2-24*

In a previous article I posted a panoramic view of Columbia Wharf looking down from the Lee Valley Road. Here from a little further East on that road with the navigation in the foreground you see the wharf and background the Ponders End Flour Mills, the gas holder and four tower blocks in Ponders End.

Much redevelopment has gone on in Ponders End and only one to those towers remains and there is no gas holder. But the shed at the wharf is still there and in use although Abbey Stainless Components Ltd are no longer there, nor is that large crane and the van boasting ‘NORTH LONDON’S CARRIER PIGEONS IN TRANSIT has long flown the coop.

*Ponders End, Enfield, 1994, 94-05-1-53*

A more pastoral panorama of Ponders End with Wright’s Flour Mills and the four towers in the background.

*Hair Fashion, Ponders End, Enfield, 1994, 94-05-1-21*

Lady Jayne remains a well known brand in the Ladies hair trade. I think this shop was probably in the High Street, much of which has now been redeveloped.

Tyre & Exhaust Centre, Ponders End, Enfield, 1994, 94-05-1-24 — *Tyre & Exhaust Centre, Ponders End, Enfield*

Tyre Services Tyre & Exhaust Centre at 151 High Street on the corner with Stonehorse Road, a short ‘No Through Road’ off the High Street. This building was still there in 2022 but had became HiQ and then National Tyres and Autocare – a Halfords company and was by then permanently closed. I expect its days were numbered. Much of the area of the High Street around it was redeveloped around ten years ago.

More colour pictures from 1994 to follow in later posts.

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More Ponders End, Enfield Wash, Palmers Green & Brimsdown 1994

More Ponders End, Enfield Wash, Palmers Green & Brimsdown: Back in 1994 my main focus was on black and white images, some of which I was selling or putting into libraries. I was taking colour on colour negative film and my work was all ‘personal’, with a few being printed for exhibitions.

*Hairdressers, Enfield Wash, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-1-52*

So while I kept fairly careful records of the black and white images, keeping a diary and annotating the contact prints I made far less documentation for the colour work. Images were filed in sheets which were numbered often for the month I developed them rather than when they were taken and there was no urgency to develop colour film, doing so in batches sometimes covering film from several months.

*Shop Window, Palmers Green, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-1-36*

Here I’ve tried to present the images in the order they were taken. They come from a whole set of walks around parts of Enfield in the early months of 1994, though I think the first may haven been taken in December 1993.

*Mural, Palmers Green, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-1-21*

The previous post, Ponders End, Brimsdown, Enfield Wash & Waltham Cross – 1994, included some pictures from the same months, including a panorama made at the same place as one of the images here. I think these pictures speak for themselves so I’ll write nothing more about them.

*Back to the Future, Bus, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-1-23*

Cable Drums, Factory, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-2-64 — *Fuel Pumps, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-1-26*

*Builders Mate, Builders Merchants, The Arena, Mollison Avenue, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-2-55*

Another post of pictures from the London Borough of Enfield later.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Ponders End, Brimsdown, Enfield Wash & Waltham Cross – 1994

In March 1994 I spent some time photographing in the London Borough of Enfield, and going a little beyond its borders into Waltham Cross. Mostly I was taking black and white pictures – some of which you can see on Flickr in the album 1994 London Photos – but I did also take some in colour, including a few colour panormas.

*Builders Mate, Builders Merchants, The Arena, Mollison Avenue, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-3-53*

Mollison Avenue in Brimsdown is a busy road running roughly parallel to and between a railway line and the Lea Navigation with the area between these crammed with industrial and commercial sites. Now much of it is occupied by delivery centres and I think there are rather more fences than in 1994.

This was a picture largely about shapes and as with many olds getting the colours to look natural is a problem – as you can see particulary in the foliage here.

Bridge, Pipe Bridge, Lea Navigation, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-3-31 — *Bridge, Pipe Bridge, Lea Navigation,* Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-3-31

The colour is rather better in this image of a large pipe bridge, possibly carrying gas, over the navigation. The view here looks rather rural, but as usual there is a line of tall pilons.

Here I made use of the curvature from the swing-lens camera – as well as the obvious pipe there is a second interlocking curve with the bridge, the grass bank and the towpath.

Columbia Wharf, Ponders End, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-3-23

Columbia Wharf was now a wharf in name only, with lorries now delivering carpets. This is now a part of ‘Ponders End Waterfront’. I think this picture was taken from Wharf Road.

Launderette, Enfield Wash, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-1-63

Enfield Wash is close to Enfield Lock station which I used several times to walk around the area. I have a small suspicion that this launderette may really have been in an area that locals would call Enfield Lock, but I decided given the subject that Enfield Wash was more appropriate.

Launderette, Enfield Wash, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-1-64

I still can’t decide whether I preferred the landscape or portrait version of this launderette interior – taken through the window when it was closed.

Shops and Cross, Waltham Cross, Broxbourne, 1994, 94-03-1-61

From Enfield Lock Station a short walk took me to the Lee Navigation towpath which is also the Lea Valley Walk and a couple of kilometres north uder the M25 I was out of Greater London and in Waltham Cross. At right is the Eleanor Cross, one of twelve built to the orders of King Edward I to mark the overnight resting places of his wife Eleanor of Castile who died near Lincoln in 1290 as her body was en route to Westminster Abbey.

Much restored it now sits in the pedestrianised shopping centre, one of only 3 surviving Eleanor Crosses. The one in front of Charing Cross Station is a Victorian 1865 recreation.

Rainham, Purfleet, Thurrock & Ponders End – 1993

Rainham, Purfleet, Thurrock & Ponders End: On Saturday 11th December 1993 I took a train from Fenchurch Street to Rainham and then walked along by the river to Coldharbour Point. There the path stopped and I returned to Rainham and took the train to Purfleet where I could pick up the riverside path again and walk on to Grays. Probably I walked about 9 miles in all and by the time I finished it I think the light would have been fading, with sunset at around 4pm.

Tilda Rice, Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-64 — *Tilda Rice, Rainham, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-64*

On this walk I made a little over 200 black and white images, a selection of which you can find on Flickr in my 1993 London album beginning here.

*Waste Paper, Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-51*

There are more colour images from this walk, including a number of panoramas, mixed with pictures from other occasions starting here on the final two pages of my Flickr album of colour pictures from 1993.

*Notices on Fence, Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-53*

But today I found some more pictures from that walk at the start of my album 1994 London Colour and I’ll share these in this post. They will have come from a cassette of film which I took in 1993 but only developed a month or so later in 1994.

*Waste Paper, Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-56*

Works, Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-46

*QEII Bridge, Dartford Bridge, Pipeline, River Thames, West Thurrock, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-11*

The final image in today’s post is something completely different on the same film, a shop window in Ponders End which I found it strangely weird. As it is on the same film as the others I think it was probably also taken in December 1993 although my caption stated 1994.

*Shop Window, Ponders End, Enfield, 1994, 94-01-1-14*

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1995 Colour – Part 1

1995 Colour – Part 1: The first of a series of posts on my colour work, mainly in London, from 1995, 35 years ago and when I’d been working extensively with colour negative film for ten years, though still continuing to work with black and white.

Although I’d always taken both colour and black and white photographs since I began in photography, black and white had dominated my work. It was still the serious side of photography in the 1970s; almost all gallery shows then were black and white, and most publications were still only printed in monochrome, including photographic magazines, although some occasionally had a few colour pages.

And back then, almost all professional colour was taken using colour slide film such as Ektachrome and Kodachrome. Films were mainly sold inclusive of processing and you sent away your exposed film and a few days later s box of slides came back through the post. Professionals might use Ektachrome and take it to a lab for processing, but that worked out more expensive, though you could get the results in an hour or so.

I was interested in colour but in the early years took far fewer colour images, largely because of the cost, though I did cut this down by buying colour film in bulk and home processing, though this needed much tighter control of time and temperature than black and white and the results were not always quite as they should have been.

Most photographers at the time felt that colour negative film was only for amateurs, but two things changed that for me. One was my frustration with transparency film which simply could not handle many of the high contrast scenes I was interested in, giving impenetrable shadows where I wanted detail and the second was seeing some prints produced by another photographer, printed on Fuji paper.

There was a clarity about the colours that this paper gave when compared with Kodak, Agfa and the others, but the other great advantage was that there was little or no colour shift with exposure. This meant that I could dodge and burn prints with a similar creative control to working with black and white.

*Chinese Takeaway, Hoe St, Walthamstow, 1994, 95c01-155*

Some time early in 1985 I made the decision to switch entirely from transparency to negative for all of my personal colour work.

This post is the first of a number which will show some of my colour images from 1995.

These pictures were all made in December 1994 or January 1995 with some 1994 images only being processed in January 1995.

*War Memorial, Callender’s Cables, Church Manorway, Belvedere, Bexley, 1994, 95c01-165*

I’ll publish more in later posts, perhaps also including some of the colour panoramas I made. There is much more of my colour work on film in a number of Flickr albums.

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