Posts Tagged ‘drums’

Shakespeare and East Ham Vaisakhi – 2007

Monday, April 22nd, 2024

Shakespeare and East Ham Vaisakhi – for me Sunday 22nd April 2007 was very much a day of two halves, with a morning spent at the Shakespeare’s Birthday celebrations around the Globe Theatre in Southwark and the afternoon with Sikhs celebrating in East Ham.


Shakespeare’s Birthday – Globe Theatre, Southwark

Shakespeare and East Ham Vaisakhi

Shakespeare was born in April 1564, but the exact date is not known, though he was baptised on April 26th. Conventionally his birthday is celebrated on St George’s Day, April 23, so although this event was a day earlier it was just as likely to be his actual birthday.

Shakespeare and East Ham Vaisakhi

Unusually I didn’t write anything on the April 2007 page of My London Diary about either of the two events I photographed on this Sunday, other than the links to to pages of pictures, but there are some captions with the pictures that give the story of the day.

Shakespeare and East Ham Vaisakhi

People met on Montague Close at the north entrance to Southwark Cathedral for the start of the carnival procession. Among them were the Pearly King of Bow Bells & Blackfriars and the Pearly Queen of the Old Kent Road, as well as a very splendid large dragon, who was accompanied by a man in a harlequin costume and mask of diamonds of blues, greens, yellows and reds.

Shakespeare and East Ham Vaisakhi

Fortunately for the dragon I think St George was saving his appearance for the following day, although later there was a man carrying his flag, and perhaps the man himself arrived after I had to rush away at noon.

Shakespeare and East Ham Vaisakhi

There were musicians with large drums and small whistles and others in some kind of medieval dress as well as a large posse of masked children as we made our way west past Pickfords Wharf and along Clink Street to the riverside and Bankside in front of the replica Globe theatre were we were welcomed by Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole, who invited us all – including the dragon – into the theatre.

Given the Globe is a wooden structure which would burn rather well this was perhaps foolhardy, but the dragon did seem rather short of fiery breath and on his or her best behaviour and posed for photographs rather tamely and demurely on the stage with the children and others. No children were eaten or maidens ravaged at least while I was there.

I was sorry to leave, but there’s a time for all things, and my time on Bankside ran out fast, and the journey to the Gurdwara in East Ham from London Bridge to West Ham and then East Ham and the walk to Rosebery Avenue took me around an hour.

More pictures on My London Diary.


Vaisakhi – East Ham – Gurdwara Dasmesh Darbar

The street was densely crowded as I got close to the Gurdwara, but people were very welcoming and let me through, though I stopped to take a few pictures of them.

As I arrived the organisers were giving people at the front of the crowd handfuls of flower petals which were thrown as the Guru Granth Sahib – the sacred Sikh scriptures and eternal Guru – was carried on cushions on its bearers head, sheltered by a saffron and blue umbrella, to be placed on a float.

The came the Khalsa, carrying Sikh standards and with the five in saffron robes holding their swords.

There were prayers and the five had flower garlands placed around their necks and loud blasts from a splendid curved metal horn, a Narsinga announced the start of the procession, with the congregation joining behind the float carrying the Guru Granth Sahib.

The Khalsa walk barefoot with holding their swords upright and looking ahead rather than at the ground and a team of sweepers, also barefoot, sweep the roadway in front of them.

The procession moved onto the main road, High Street North, which was soon packed as far as I could see in both directions. I waited for the end of the procession to pass but did not follow it on the long procession around the area which takes several hours.

There are many more pictures on My London Diary


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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Ashura Day & Italian Gardens – 2007

Tuesday, January 30th, 2024

Ashura Day & Italian Gardens: On Tuesday January 30, 2007 I came to Hyde Park close to Marble Arch where Shi’ite Muslims were gathering for their annual Ashura Day Procession from there to the Notting Hill Mosque.

Ashura Day & Italian Gardens

The procession celebrates the life and ideals of Imam Husain, the grandson of the Prophet, and mourns his martyrdom at Karbala in Iraq in 61 AH (AD680.) His example in dying for human dignity, human rights and the aims of his faith inspire them in trying to live a good and moral life and they seek Husain’s blessing on their daily lives.

Ashura Day & Italian Gardens

Here is part of the post I wrote in 2007 of the event (with slight corrections):

Several thousand people joined in the annual procession in London, making their way slowly from Hyde Park to the mosque in Notting Hill. Many wore black, and all joined in the chanting of “Ya Husain” accompanied by the beating of drums clashing of sanj (cymbals) and the blowing of trumpets, along with calls to prayer. Those taking part beat their breasts, largely in a symbolic fashion, although there were groups of young men who from time to time swung their arms vigorously.

Ashura Day & Italian Gardens

The Ashura Procession is impressive to see, and everyone taking part seemed to welcome my interest in what was taking place and were happy to be photographed.

Ashura Day & Italian Gardens

The weather was dull and it soon began to get dark; it didn’t help that I had one of my fiddle-fingers technical disaster days, where I kept finding I’d altered the camera settings without being aware of doing so. But it was the kind of occasion where it would be hard not to get some interesting images.

The procession was slow-moving – I wrote “it was moving at a speed that would not have embarrassed a snail” and by the time it reached Lancaster Gate I had taken many pictures and also needed a rest. Dusk was approaching rapidly – and there had been little enough light all day. I went into the Italian Gardens and took a few pictures there in the falling gloom, experimenting a little with flash for some of them.

http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2007/01/jan.htm

The Grade II listed Italian Gardens were Prince Albert’s idea, and built for Queen Victoria in 1862 as a part of the gardens of Kensington Palace which had been opened to the public in 1841. Albert had previously created an Italian garden at their Isle of Wight Osborne House.

The gardens were designed by some of the big names of the day. Sir Charles Barry and Robert Richardson Banks designed the Pump House (now a shelter), Sir James Pennethorne the overall layout, and the reliefs and sculptures were by the unfortunately named John Thomas. The first monument in the garden erected in 1862 by public subscription was a statue by William Calder Marshall of Charles Jenner, the pioneer of vaccination against smallpox. The gardens were renovated a few years ago.

The gardens are at the point where the River Westbourne (known by a dozen different names at various times and places) once flowed into Hyde Park. The river comes from various sources in West Hampstead and Brondesbury, flowing through Kilburn and through Hyde Park (where it was dammed in 1730 to produce the Serpentine) and then on through culverts and a large pipe across Sloane Square Station and on into Bazalgette’s Northern Low Level Sewer – with only storm discharges reaching the Thames at Pimlico. These should end with the completion of London’s Super Sewer.

By 1834 the growth of London and widespread adoption of water closets had largely turned the river into a foul sewer and it could no longer be used to supply the Serpentine, The water for this lake and the gardens now comes from three artesian wells bored in Hyde Park.

More pictures from both the Ashura Procession and the Italian Gardens on My London Diary:


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Notting Hill Carnival 2006

Monday, August 28th, 2023

Notting Hill Carnival 2006: On Monday 28th Aug 2006 I went to photograph Notting Hill Carnival, working with both black and white film and digital colour. In most of my carnival pictures I’ve concentrated on the people attending the event rather than the costumes and I did so on this occasion with the black and white, but for the colour I decided to mainly photograph those taking part in the carnival as the pictures here show.

Notting Hill Carnival 2006

Rather unusually my August 2006 page only starts on Friday 25th, when I went to Greenhithe & Swanscombe Marsh. I’d been away from London most of the month, holidaying with friends in Kent, visiting Paris and staying with family in Beeston and decided it wasn’t appropriate to post pictures from these locations on My London Diary.

Notting Hill Carnival 2006

In 2006 I went on both Sunday 17th, the Children’s Day and the main carnival event on the Monday, but the pictures here are all from the Monday. You can see those from Children’s Day on a link from the August Page of My London Diary.

Notting Hill Carnival 2006

I’ve always had a fairly elastic definition of London, and it stretched some way out along the River Thames both upstream and down, and also taking in the London Loop, a section of which I walked with family the following day.

Notting Hill Carnival 2006

Sunday had been a busy day too. Notting Hill only really gets going after lunch, so I had time to go to East Ham in the morning for the Sri Mahalakshmi Temple Chariot Festival and then call in at Bromley-by-Bow and walk to Stratford and photograph again the Bow Back Rivers before going to Children’s Day.

So I think I was probably fairly tired by the time Monday came around, having done rather a lot of cycling and walking over the past three days, as well as taking a great many pictures.

As I pointed out, it was “two years on from when I last photographed the event.” The previous year I had “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 also wrote “when I’ll get round to processing the film is anyone’s guess” and the answer was not for a very long time – and then I sent it away for processing rather than do it myself. By 2006 I had almost completely committed to digital for its many advantages and this was one of my final flings with film. The “more pictures soon” with which the piece ends was an aspiration never fulfilled online and I’ve yet to print any of the black and white pictures.

Perhaps the reason for this – and why I probably won’t get to Carnival this afternoon – is “because I’m getting older … 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 there lies the problem; most of them did seem to be the same.”

But Notting Hill Carnival is still one of London’s great spectacles – and a great fashion show on the street. If you’ve never been it’s very much worth attending.

More pictures on My London Diary.



Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners

Monday, March 13th, 2023

Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners. I started my day on Friday 13th March 2015 in Feltham in outer London, outside an Immigration Tribunal before going in to cover three further protests in central London.


Let Ife Stay in the UK! York House Immigration Tribunal, Feltham

Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners

Immigration has been very much in the news lately, with the UK government introducing new legislation to attempt to evade its responsibilities under international obligations over the treatment of refugees, demonising those who have genuine asylum claims as “illegal” and refusing them the opportunity to make claims.

For years both our major political parties have vied with each other to produce more and more draconian measures to cut the number of migrants coming to the UK. A part of this has been the setting up of more and more Byzantine and understaffed systems to slow down the processing of claims by the Home Office. More and more people are kept in limbo for years before eventually being granted leave to stay in this country.

It’s our system that has led to the huge growth of people smugglers, at first using lorries and more recently concentrating on channel crossings in unsafe and expendable small boats.

Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners
Some of the petition to keep Ife and her family in the UK

The real basis for this trade is that there are no safe routes that most genuine asylum seekers can take to enter this country. Even the few country-specific schemes we have are not working properly. Were we to set up a system that worked fairly and efficiently it would largely put the people smugglers out of business, perhaps cutting the demand for their services by around three-quarters.

Setting up a system that rapidly – perhaps within 28 days – sorted out those with a probable case for asylum from those who were clearly economic migrants would not be difficult, and we could admit those who are likely in the end to be given asylum on a provisional basis, allowing them to work and contribute to our society while their cases were under more detailed scrutiny.

Lineker’s tweet “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s” was simply stating facts. It certainly is immeasurably cruel, and listening to speeches by Tory MPs and ministers both in Parliament and in media interviews we largely hear a complete lack of compassion from people claiming to be “compassionate“.

Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners

Perhaps it might have been politically more acceptable to call it something like Orwellian double-think but government policy often seems to be very accurately following the well-known quote “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” And I probably don’t need to tell you who said that.

Obviously we should not refer to “invasions” or define people’s actions as illegal when their activities are legal under international law, and certainly even people breaking laws are not themselves illegal.

I didn’t know there was an Immigration Tribunal in Feltham before the protest here, rather hidden away on a small industrial estate a mile or two south of Heathrow. And clearly the staff working there didn’t want people to know, and attempted to get police to stop the protest – but were told by police it was legal. It wasn’t a big protest, calling for a 2 year old Ife and her mother and brotheer to be allowed to stay in Peckham where the Ife and continue the medical treatment she needs rather than be deported to Nigeria. You can read more about the protest at Let Ife Stay in the UK!


Save Our Lions – ban Canned Hunting – Trafalgar Square

It took me a little over an hour to travel by bus, train and tube to Trafalgar Square where I joined (a little late) several hundred people who were there to protest against ‘canned hunting’, where lions are bred and raised tame on farms in South Africa for rich visitors to pet, to ‘walk with lions’ and to shoot as trophy heads.

It’s a sordid business, degrading noble animals and threatening wild lions which are captured for farm breeding to improve the quality of the stock. Young females are often killed as soon as they have got too large for the petting zoos, as females are in little demand as hunting trophies.

After some speeches on the North Terrace I was invited to go across with a couple of protesters to South Africa House, where I took a few pictures as they posed in the entrance before security told us to leave.

Save Our Lions – ban Canned Hunting


Poverty pay at the Royal College of Art – RCA, Kensington Gore

IWGB members, supported by students, protested noisily at the Royal College of Art against low pay of outsourced workers, demanding they be paid the London Living Wage now, not from September as the college has offered; the workers need it now.

This was a noisy protest with trade union members and students banging on drums, whistling, blowing plastic horns and chanting slogans, mainly “Living Wage Now!” with RCA security and a couple of police looking on.

After protesting at the entrance to the RCA for some time they marched out on to the main road and held a short rally at the end of the college building close to the Albert Hall before going on a further noisy protest at a small enclosed yard next to a college dining area.

Poverty pay at the Royal College of Art.


Free the Hares boys protest at G4S – Victoria St

Finally I went to Victoria Street where protesters on the wide pavement outside the G4S offices were calling or the release of 5 young boys from Hares, held and tortured in Israeli jails which G4S helps to run.

They were arrested two years ago after they had been accused of throwing stones at an incident when an illegal settler crashed into the back of a truck. If they are ever tried, like most Palestinians in Israeli courts they are likely to be found guilty – even if there is little or no real evidence and could be sentenced to over 25 years in jail.

The protesters also called for the release of other Palestinian child prisoners, handing out leaflets and displaying banners which detailed some of the cases and the torture of children often tortured and held in isolation in small dark cells in the prisons for which G4S provides support.

Free the Hares boys protest at G4S


Crusaders’ Temple and Ashura Procession – 2008

Thursday, January 19th, 2023

Temple Festival: 400 Years of Middle & Inner Temple – Saturday 19th January, 2008

Crusaders' Temple and Ashura Procession
Temple Church, 2008

A few weeks ago I spent an interesting afternoon with several friends. We met at Temple underground station then walked up Milford Lane and into the Middle Temple, turning right at Fountain Court, passing Middle Temple Hall, turning north into Middle Temple Lane and then right into Pump Court and then paying our entry fee to visit Temple Church, one of London’s more remarkable ancient churches. After a long time there we walked out and up Fetter Lane to Holborn Circus and on to Ely Place and spending some time in St Etheldreda’s RC Church, also worth a visit, before turning back and down Ely Place to the Old Mitre pub.

Crusaders' Temple and Ashura Procession
Middle Temple Hall, 2008

This is only one of many in London worth a visit, and we soon left for another and finally for a meal in one of those Wetherspoons is currently trying to sell. Sitting there I reviewed the numerous pictures I had taken on the walk, and thought a few were not bad. When I got home I took the SD card out of the camera and left it on my desk. The following morning I put it into my USB card reader but the reader didn’t respond and nothing came up on my computer. I put it back into the camera and got an error message and the camera was now also unable to read the card. I tried another camera with the same result.

Crusaders' Temple and Ashura Procession

I carefully cleaned the contacts on the card, but that didn’t help. I googled a bit, but all of the articles I found assumed you could access the card, which I couldn’t. I gave up and binned the card. I’ve never had this problem before using CF and SD cards for 20 years, taking pictures most days. On one or two occasions I’ve had to use rescue software to read files from cards, and back in the early days I did manage to overwrite some files after I had put them on my computer with smaller versions of the same images, but I can’t recall ever having been unable to access the files at all. And I did on one occasion lose one or two full cards after the pocket they were in was ripped when things got rather physical in a protest I was covering.

Middle Temple Lane

Fortunately it didn’t really matter. I’d had an enjoyable afternoon, and the pictures, though interesting weren’t important. I could in theory go back and repeat them, possibly better, though it’s very unlikely I will. And although there were some places on our route I’d not photographed before, others I had, for example on the visit the pictures here come from, when on Saturday 19th January 2008 the Middle & Inner Temple were celebrating 400 years since James I granted the site in perpetuity to the Honourable Societies of the Middle and Inner Temple for training and accommodating barristers, on condition that they also looked after the Temple Church.

Of course the Temple Church was by then almost 450 years old – here’s the first couple of paras of what I wrote back in 2008:

The Knights Templar moved down from the north end of Chancery Lane to Temple around 1160, and of course built a church. Soon after they were suppressed in 1308, the site went to the Order of St John, and not long after they leased the site to some law students.

Henry VIII didn’t just become head of the church in England to make it easier to change wives, but also used it to grab for himself the huge riches of the monasteries – including the Temple site with its two templar halls full of lawyers. (When there was a pilgrimage of several thousand in protest, led by lawyer Robert Aske, Henry promised to look into their complaints and most went home happy. Then he had Aske hung in chains from a church tower until he starved to death and forgot his promises. But Aske came from Grey’s Inn, not the Temple.)

Fountain Court, 2008

You can read the rest of my post and see more pictures at Middle & Inner Temple – 400 Years.


Ashura Day Procession – Marble Arch, Saturday 19 Jan, 2008

The Knights Templar were of course fighting in the crusades against Islam in Palestine and elsewhere, and their church has memorials to many of the nobler knights, including some who bear my family name, though almost certainly I’m not in any way descended from them. Marshalls were stable boys as well as knights. But it did seem appropriate in some way that my day took me from the Temple (though I didn’t on that occasion go in the Temple Church) to one of the major Islamic religious commemorations of Shia Islam.

Ashura Day remembers the martyrdom of Husain and his small group of followers at Kerbala, Iraq in 61AH (680 AD.) Processions in London have taken place for many years now, and I first photographed one of them in 2000, returning in several years including 2008. It takes place annually on the 10th of Muharram, which I think in 2023 will be July 29th.

Crusaders' Temple and Ashura Procession

The event began at Marble Arch and then several thousand people walked along Hyde Park Place and the Bayswater Road, some banging drums and blowing trumpets, while others chant through loudspeakers to lead the mainly black-clad walkers in their mourning, remembering the martyrdom of Husain and his small group of followers.

I left the procession, which was on its way to the Islamic Centre in Penzance Place in Notting Hill, at Lancaster Gate. It was getting rather dark and taking pictures by available light was becoming tricky – and I was getting tired and glad to get on the tube.

Many more pictures at Ashura Day Procession.


I Still Quite Like Peckham

Thursday, August 11th, 2022

I Still Quite Like Peckham

I Still Quite Like Peckham. Every time I visit Peckham I’m impressed by the vibrancy of Rye Lane, though perhaps if I lived there I might sometimes want to get away from the music, both live and recorded that assailed me from almost every street corner and some places between when I walked down to the Peckham Rye Station a few Saturdays ago.

I Still Quite Like Peckham

I didn’t take any photographs then – I was hurrying to catch a train, nor on my previous visit a few weeks earlier on my way to Nunhead Cemetery, but I have on some previous occasions, particularly on Saturday 11 Aug, 2007 when things were rather different and the ‘I love Peckham’ festival was in full swing. Here’s the piece I wrote about this on My London Diary and just a few of the pictures I also posted – you can see many more on the web site. The links I’ve left in the piece are all to other posts on that site, and I’ve kept the lower case only style I then used, but have corrected the odd typo.

I Love Peckham

Peckham, Saturday 11 Aug, 2007

I Still Quite Like Peckham

‘i love peckham’ is a festival backed by southwark council and based around the centre of peckham. although peckham has had a bad press – particularly over the murder of young damilola taylor in november 2000, and more recent violence on the streets, many parts of it are pleasant streets and vibrant shopping areas. recent investment – particularly since the murder – has led to a number of improvements.

I Still Quite Like Peckham

one of the more succesful regeneration projects has been in the bellenden road area which is home to a number of artists including tom phillips and antony gormley, both of whom have been involved in brightening up the streets.

I Still Quite Like Peckham

but there are still estates with corners that can hide dangers, and times when its wise to cross the road to avoid the dealers in their cars. it’s an area where it pays to be streetwise.

I Still Quite Like Peckham

as well as the activities in the square by the library and at the top of rye lane i photographed on saturday there were also other events, including a series of shop window displays.

I Still Quite Like Peckham

Like the other folks carrying built-in cameras on their latest mobile phones i did photograph some of these, but often felt that some of the other windows which had their normal displays were more interesting. but then i’ve always had an interest in shop windows, which feature strongly in projects such as ‘ideal café, cool blondes and paradise.

Kensal Green, 1988 from Ideal Café, Cool Blondes & Paradise

ideal café, cool blondes and paradise

on the main stage by peckham library were performances by indian musicians, a samba group and some young dancers from peckham. around the square were a number of sofas specially decorated for the occasion, many of which were greatly appreciated.

I Still Quite Like Peckham

this was the third annual i love peckham festival, but the previous ones had been blighted by british weather; today the sun shone on us at least most of the time, and the beach at times looked almost tropical.

The Human Rights Jukebox at Camberwell Green, 16 June 2007

i stopped off on the way home at the south london gallery, where the installation of isa suarez‘s human rights jukebox was coming to an end. i was pleased i’d stopped by to watch the video of the event and to have a beer and talk to a few of those involved with the project, including isa herself. i still find it mildly amusing to see myself on film, and there were glimpses of me (mainly my back) taking pictures, walking in the march, generally scurrying around and rather too lengthy a shot as i munched on a wholemeal sandwich.

despite these few moments, it was interesting to see the event again and from a different viewpoint. i was sorry i had to rush off to be home with friends.
more pictures


SOAS Shut Down 2015

Friday, October 29th, 2021

Students at SOAS, University of London, occupied the Brunei Suite on the Bloomsbury campus on October 6th 2015, after a leaked management document detailed £6.5m of cuts including the loss of 186 courses, roughly a third of the curriculum.

This leak came as the latest in a whole series of decisions by management which dismissed or ignored the views of both students and staff, and led to a unanimous vote of no confidence in the management two days later by the General Assembly of the SOAS Student Union.

As well as the course cuts and problems with switching courses and choosing tutorials, they complained that management had ignored an overwhelming vote in support of the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign, ignored the opposition to the outsourcing of cleaners, security staff and other workers and failed to respond to the strike by Fractional workers (who are responsible for much of the teaching) for fair pay. The students said that management were failing to deal with the gender pay gap and that institutional racism is thriving in SOAS.

They called for a restructuring of the Executive Board and Board of Trustees to give students, academic staff and support staff authority over the running of our university, and suggested that a large proportion of the savings needed could be made by the Executive Board cutting their own inflated salaries rather than making staff redundant.

The entrance to the occupation after management locked the doors

The management responded with lies and by harassing the students, including by cutting off the power on 23rd October, and when many teaching and administrative staff refused to cross a picket line they locked the doors of the university. The entrance to the occupation became through the high ground floor windows.

Sandy Nicoll, Unison Branch Secretary

After a rally held on 27th October which I had missed they tried to intimidate the trade unions by suspending Unison Branch Secretary Sandy Nicoll, falsely claiming he had let students into the main building to protest outside the offices of recently appointed SOAS Director Baroness Amos.

The protest on Thursday 29th was held to call for the reinstatement of Nicoll, and there were messages of support for Sandy from colleges and trade unions around the country as well as a long series of speakers who came to give their support in person.

It was a well-attended and noisy protest with much banging on catering pots and pans with Nicoll getting a lengthy welcome before he could speak.

At the end of the rally there was music and dancing, with people taking part in the 'Strikey-Strikey', an adaption of the Hokey-Cokey:
You put your left arm in
Your left arm out
In, out, in, out
You shake it all about
You do the strikey-strikey
And you turn around
That's what it's all about
Woah, the strikey-strikey
Woah, the strikey-strikey
Woah, the strikey-strikey
Knees bent
Arms stretched
Ra-ra-ra...

Things appeared to be drawing to a conclusion and I got ready to leave when things livened up a little with people setting off smoke flares as they paraded with banners in front of the occupied building to the music of a violin and drums.

The management finally backed down and reinstated Sandy Nicoll and eventually the occupation came to an end too, with management changing some of its plans but not meeting the main student demands. Dissent continued on campus and there was a further occupation in 2017. There have been some victories, and after a 12 year fight the cleaners became directly employed by SOAS at the end of August 2018.

More at SOAS Shut Down after Sandy suspended.


Notting Hill in colour – 1997

Thursday, October 29th, 2020
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.