Posts Tagged ‘Paul Baldesare’

Pancakes, A Farm & Another London – 2007

Tuesday, February 20th, 2024

Pancakes, A Farm & Another London: My working day on Shrove Tuesday, 20th January 2007 began in Guildhall Yard in the City of London, where by permission of the Chief Commoner the Worshipful Company Of Poulters were holding their annual charity pancake races. The Poulters got their charter to regulate the sale of poultry and small game in 1368, but their pancake races are a rather more recent tradition, first run in 2005.

Pancakes, A Farm & Another London

Music for the event came from the Worshipful Company Of Musicians (1500), time-keeping was by the Worshipful Company Of Clockmakers (1631) and a starting cannon for each of the many races was provided and fired by the Worshipful Company Of Gunmakers (1637.)

Pancakes, A Farm & Another London

Although this is a charitable and fun event it fully demonstrates the competitive spirit at the heart of the city. More pictures on My London Diary.

Pancakes, A Farm & Another London

From Guildhall I rushed to another pancake event on the edge of the City, the Great Spitalfields Pancake Race at the former Trumans Brewery, arriving very out of breath just in time to see the finish of the final race and to photograph some of those who had taken part in fancy dress and the prize-giving.

Pancakes, A Farm & Another London

As I commented, “the atmosphere was considerably less restrained than in the City.” More pictures.

From there a short walk took me on a visit to Spitalfields Urban Farm, one of a number of urban farms set up in the 70s and 80s (1978 in this case) on waste land. This area had formerly been part of a railway goods depot next to the line out of Liverpool Street. It now provides an environmental education and a great deal of enjoyment to people of all ages in the local community.

I was meeting with other photographers later in the day, and still had time to stroll in a leisurely fashion through Spitalfields to Shoreditch to catch the bus, making a few photographs on the way. Back then there was relatively little graffiti on the walls around the disused Spitalfields station and Brick Lane, but now its hard to find a square inch of wall not covered with it. I was photographing in a dark alley leading through to Bishopsgate when a hooded figure strolled past me. Despite the media stereotyping of ‘hoodies’ I couldn’t feel he was in the least threatening; if anything rather more like a monk. More pictures on My London Diary.

I met a group of photographer friends for a meal at an Italian cafe in New Malden and then we went on together to Kingston Museum, where the show ‘Another London‘ including my work along with that of Paul Baldesare and Mike Seaborne was then showing. Of course it closed years ago, but the web site featuring work from it is still on-line.

Pancakes, A Farm & Another London

As the introduction on the site states, the show features “the London of the suburbs, of its deprived areas and of its various ethnic groups” with work by myself an Paul “in the tradition of ‘street photography‘” and Mike’s panoramic urban landscapes some “using the viewpoint offered by the front seat of London buses.”

Another London

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Kwasi Kwarteng, Cuts & Paris, New York, London

Thursday, October 20th, 2022

Wednesday 20th October 2020 was a rather different day for me. I started photographing speakers at an indoor rally, something I rarely do, went off to meet with my MP in a pub, then photographed a march against cuts in welfare and the loss of public sector jobs, ending the day at the opening of a show featuring myself and two other photographers, one of whom, Paul Baldesare took two of the pictures in that section of today’s post.

Jesse Jackson & Christian Aid Lobby – Westminster, Wednesday 20 October 2010

I was one of the 2,500 or so Christian Aid supporters who came to Westminster to lobby their MPs on 20.10.2010, asking them to press for transparency and fairness in the global tax system and for action on climate change.

The day started with a rally in the Methodist palace of Westminster Central Hall, opposite Westminster Abbey, the hall where the inaugural meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place in January 1946. The Methodists had then moved out for a few months to allow this to take place, and special seating, translation booths installed, along with extra lighting to allow the event to be photographed and televised. But I think that lighting must have been removed as it was pretty dim inside for me to photograph the speakers. But I and a small group from my constituency were fortunate to be inside as there wasn’t enough room for all who came.

Supporters outside Methodist Central Hall

There were speakers from this country and abroad, but the star of the event was undoubtedly the Rev Jesse Jackson, a noted US civil rights and political activist, president and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.

After the rally and a hurried lunch a small group of us from his Spelthorne constituency met with our then recently elected MP, Kwasi Kwarteng, who suggested we find a place in the St Stephen’s Tavern to talk rather than have to go through the tedious business of queueing to go through security to meet inside the parlimentary offices. Although he was still relatively unknown it was rather easy to find him, as there are relatively few extremely tall black male MPs. Though rather more share his educational background of prep school and Eton.

Since then his rise to fame has been rapid, though after his recent sacking after only 38 days as Chancellor of the Exchequer, perhaps that should be notoriety. He has only visited his constituency on fairly rare occasions and I’ve yet to meet him again, though have seen him from a distance outside parliament.

He listened – or at least stayed fairly quiet – while my wife and others talked about the campaign for tax justice and the need for reforms to stop the various forms of tax dodging by major companies robs poor countries of more than $160bn a year, while climate change and the natural disasters it is bringing have a vastly greater impact on the poorer countries who are most vulnerable, despite their much lower per capita carbon footprints. They suffer from the results of our high dependence on fossil fuels.

But his response to the lobbying was perhaps best described as ‘mansplaining’; we were not at the time aware of his work as a consultant for the Odey Asset Management hedge fund or the recent allegations by Private Eye that he has continued to receive undeclared contributions from them. Certainly his activities as Chancellor have resulted in them and other hedge funds who bet against the pound making millions.

More at Jesse Jackson & Christian Aid Lobby.

March Against Spending Cuts – Malet St & Lincolns Inn Fields, Wed 20 Oct 2010

This was the day that the government announced the results of their comprenhensive spending review (CSR) which involved considerable cuts in welfare benefits and the loss of many public sector jobs as services are cut. The deficit left by the outgoing New Labour government had given the Tories in the Con-Dem coalition a perfect excuse to slash the public sector and privatise services in a way they would never have dared before.

More than a million public sector jobs were expected to be lost, with some being replaced by private sector workers on lower wages, fewer benefits, lower standards of delivery and safety and higher workloads. There will be more cases of people suffering as private companies expand into healthcare, putting profits before the needs of people, and similar changes in other areas.

The Coalition of Resistance who called the protest say the £83 billion to be cut from public services will plunge the economy into a slump. Rather than cutting jobs, pay, pensions, benefits, and public services that will hit the poor ten times harder than the rich, they urge the government to cut bank profits and bonuses, tax the rich and big business. Rather than contract out the NHS, they should axe Trident and withdraw from Afghanistan.

I had to leave before the rally at the end of the march at Downing Street to prepare for the opening of an exhibition I had organised in Hoxton.

March Against Spending Cuts

Paris • New York • London Opening – Shoreditch Gallery, Hoxton Market. Wed 20 Oct 2010

Paris, 1988

Together with two photographer friends I had put on the show Paris • New York • London at the Shoreditch Gallery which was attached to a cafe in Hoxton Market, a small street just off Great Eastern Street, close to Hoxton Square. Rather confusingly this is not where the actual Hoxton Market is now held which is in Hoxton St.

Me in a red jumper at the opening © Paul Baldesare, 2010

The show was a part of the East London Photomonth annual photography festival, and over the month it was on attracted a decent number of visitors and comments. My section was Paris, and I’d ordered a decent number of copies of my book, Photo Paris, still available at Blurb, most of which sold at the show. Unfortunately I think it now costs around twice as much as I was able to sell it for then.

Jiro Osuga, Townly Cooke, my book and Me © Paul Baldesare, 2010

Paul Baldesare’s pictures of London and pictures taken by John Benton-Harris in New York completed the show and you can still see the work online on a small web site I wrote for the event. Thanks to Paul for some pictures taken at the opening where I was too busy talking to use a camera.

Paris • New York • London Opening

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Pancakes, a Farm and More From London

Sunday, February 20th, 2022

Pancakes, a Farm and More From London 2007. Fifteen years ago on Tuesday 20th February 2007 I had a long but enjoyable day.

Worshipful Company of Poulters Pancake Race

It was Shrove Tuesday, and my working day began in Guildhall Yard at the centre of the City of London, where some of its older institutions were enjoying letting their hair down a little in the Worshipful Company of Poulters Pancake Race.

I wrote then: ” it was first run in 2005, but as befits the city it has a serious set of classes and rules, music from the Worshipful Company Of Musicians (1500), time-keeping by the Worshipful Company Of Clockmakers (1631) and a starting cannon for each of the many races provided and fired by the Worshipful Company Of Gunmakers (1637.)

The guilds are now largely charitable organisations and the event each year supports the current Lord Mayor’s charity, which in 2005 was Voluntary Service Overseas, VSO. But although it is just a bit of fun, it also strongly showed the competitive nature of the the City.

Great Spitalfields Pancake Race

There was a very different feel to the Great Spitalfields Pancake Race at Trumans Brewery in Spitalfields, organised by Alternative Arts where teams from local businesses were competing in fancy dress on Dray Walk. Rules there were minimal and the emphasis was on fun.

I arrived rather out of breath and very late, having run most of the way from the Guildhall, and was only just in time to see the final race and the prize-giving.

Spitalfields Urban Farm

I had nothing particular to photograph for the rest of the day and decided to accompany a friend who was looking after a couple of his neighbours children and take a look at the Spitalfields Urban Farm. A late friend of mine had helped to set up and running an urban farm in Vauxhall in 1977 a year earlier than the Spitalfields farm, but part of the same movement in those years.

The farm was set on land which had previously been a part of a goods yard for the railway coming from East Anglia into Liverpool St. I imagine the only animals then would have been coming to slaughter in London markets, but now they had a happier future, providing environmental education and a great deal of enjoyment to people of all ages in the local community.

Art, Architecture and a Hoody

I said good goodbye to my friend and the children he was with at the farm and went for a short walk around Spitalfields on my way to catch a bus on Norton Folgate, one of those great historical names that we still have in London.

Norton Folgate, on the north edge of the City of London used to be an “extra-parochial liberty”. According to Wikipedia there are several theories about the name. Norton probably came from Old English words north and tun, the latter meaning farmstead. But Folgate is more of a mystery; possibly it came from the name of a Lord of the Manor or alternatively from the Saxon ‘foldweg’ meaning highway, but I think its derivation is probably a mystery lost in time.

Before the Reformation the area was occupied by the Priory and Hospital of St Mary Spital, and when the priory closed down it became Crown property, and was not included in the neighbouring parishes. Being a liberty meant the King surprisingly didn’t claim an income from it. In 1900 it became a civil parish and in 1921 it was divided in two the west part going to the borough of Shoreditch and the east to the borough of Stepney. Both these were abolished in 1965 with the formation of the London Boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Finally in the 1990s parts of the area were transferred to the City of London, though my walk was streets of Tower Hamlets.

Another London

I was on my way to New Malden where I was meeting Paul Baldesare and a few other photographers in an Italian cafe before going on to give them a guided tour of our show (with Mike Seaborne), Another London, then taking place in Kingston Museum.

The website I think shows all of the photographs in the show by all three of us. My own contribution was on photographs of public events in London, concentrating on those “related to particular ethnic communities in the capital, while others are from very local events such as street parties and festivals.” It includes quite a few made with the show in mind in the London Borough of Kingston.

My photographs from 20th February 2007 are linked from the February 2007 page of My London Diary, but you will need to scroll down to find both the texts and links to the images, a problem with the site design which I improved the following year.

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Underground Photography

Thursday, November 7th, 2019

Like many photographers who work in London I spend too much of my time underground, travelling around from place to place. Taking the Underground is usually the fastest way to get around London other than riding a bike as traffic congestion so often holds up buses and taxis (which are prohibitive unless you work in advertising or fashion.)

Taking my bike to London is possible, but adds complications like finding a safe place to lock it up (and nowhere in London is really safe from bicycle theives) and, particularly with marches where I may end up taking pictures a mile or more from where I started, having to walk back and find it. So usually I rely on buses when I’m not in any hurry or the tube when I am and the journey is too long to walk.

I decided to photograph on buses.

Back around 1990 I first saw the pictures taken on the Underground by Paul Baldesare, who became a friend and one I’ve shown work together with on numerous occasions. The first was a show at the Museum of London and as Paul already had some fine work on the tube, I decided to make a set of images for it of people on London’s buses. Paul’s early work was in black and white, but later he went on to photograph the tube in colour.

Another photographer who has photographed underground for a long period of time is Bob Mazzer, and you can find several features on his work on Spitalfields Life (there are links at the bottom of that page to the others.) His pictures are more varied than Baldesare’s and are the pictures of a regular daily traveller recording odd moments and unusual scenes.

Published now by Hoxton Mini Press. is a book of the work of photographer Mike Goldwater, London Underground 1970-1980, and you can see a fine selection of pictures on the BBC web site feature Candid moments on the London Underground.

And for a final mention, Stefan Rousseau, whose more recent pictures appeared in a Metro feature, Photographer secretly documents people’s sleepy commutes on London’s underground in April 2019.

Of course there are many other photographers who have photographed on the London Underground, including some well-known names, and several photographers I know whose projects I haven’t mentioned, along with the many thousands who have posted their phone images to Instagram and elsewhere. And of course there are other cities and underground networks. But the examples I’ve linked to are some that have particularly interested me and that I hope readers of this post will enjoy. Apologies to all those not mentioned!

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.

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