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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
