Re-photo

Continuing the series of post about the black and white pictures I made in 1980, with the pictures and the comments I posted more recently daily on Facebook.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24n-63.htm

A man was walking on the riverside wall, to his right perhaps a 20 ft drop, probably not into water but into thick mud. The lifebelt which should have been below him was missing, but it probably would have been of little use.

I’m not sure if he was having some kind of mental health problem, or was drunk, or possibly both, but didn’t feel there was much I could do to help – and trying to do anything might even have made him fall. So I took a picture and walked on. I did keep an eye on him and by the time I was leaving the area he had come down safely.

Child posing on riverside fence, Greenwich. 1980
24n-66: child, river, power station, cranes,

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24n-66.htm

Another picture of a girl standing beside the railings but with rather different framing from those in my previous post, with the river visible below the fence, the bottom rail of I’ve carefully aligned along the riverbank.

This was actually taken a few seconds before the previously shown picture of her. My filing and numbering system is based on contact sheets and films were not always developed and filed exactly in the order they were taken. I was using two cameras to take black and white images, an Olympus OM1 with a 35mm shift lens for carefully composed images such as this and most of the urban landscape work, and a Leica M2 with which I was trying to develop a more intuitive approach, reacting without conscious deliberation.

I based my numbering system on a sheet number for each sheet (here 24n) and then a number based on the position on the contact sheet rather than frame numbers. Because I was loading film from 100ft rolls into cassettes of roughly 36 exposures the first frame on the film might be any number from 0 to around 38 and the sequence usually jumps from 38 to 0 somewhere in the middle of the film. And sometimes I would load a strip of film, cut to appropriate length in total darkness, measured between two nails on my darkroom door so that the frame numbers actually went in the opposite direction.

I cut my developed black and white films into strips of 6 frames to put into filing sheets, giving 6 strips and often a shorter length of 2 or 3 frames. The filing sheets I used had 7 pockets so could accomodate a single film, and it was just possible to expose all 6 or 7 strips on a single 8×10″ sheet of photographic paper to produce a contact sheet. But frame numbers were not always visible on these, so I used a simple system to give a unique number to every frame. This negative, 24n-66, is on contact sheet 24n, on the sixth strip of negatives (numbered 1-6 or 0-6 when there was something worth keeping on the film end) and the 6th negative on that strip.

In 1986 I moved to a slightly different system of naming the contact sheets that included the year and month in their name, making it rather easier to find things.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24x-44.htm

Surprisingly this corner is still easily recognisable, though the advert has changed, with a taller hoarding; the gates, no longer for a scrap metal merchant, are now firmly closed by two iron bars and the skeletal structure behind has disappeared completely. This is on the corner of Quaker St and Commercial St, and the building at the left is still there on the corner of Shoreditch High St and Great Eastern St.

Govette Metal & Glass Works, Park Hill, Clapham, Lambeth. 1980
24y-53: children, swings, dog,

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24y-53.htm

Govette is originally a French name, and a couple of them came over with William the Conqueror back in 1066 and were given land in Somerset. The name was often spelt without the final ‘e’.

Govette Metal & Glass Works, a family firm and was established in 1956 in Clapham, and in the 1970s split up into several divisions, with Govette’s remaining in Clapham. They closed the factory there in the mid-nineties and specialised in the supply, installation and glazing of steel windows and doors, establishing Govette Windows Ltd in 1996, and are now based in Whyteleafe. They also now have a factory in South Godstone.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24z-63.htm

Albany or ‘The Albany’ is a mansion in Mayfair that was extended and converted in 1802 into 69 bachelor flats, with the addition of two long ranges of buildings which ended at the back gate shown in the picture. The flats are rather like the rooms in an Oxbridge college, which are known as ‘sets’. Apparently you no longer have to be a bachelor to live there, though children below 14 are not allowed.

The flats generally have an entrance hall, two main rooms, and a smaller room and are owned freehold but subject to a whole number of rules. In 2007 one sold for around £2m. Around half of them belong to Peterhouse College Cambridge. Most are rented with an annual rent (according to Wikipedia) of up to £50,000. Many famous people have spent some time as tenants here, including someone of particular interest to photographers, W H F Talbot.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24z-64.htm

I’ve never understood why people come to sit at Piccadilly Circus. It isn’t a place where there is much to see or much to do, but every tourist has to visit it.

And as most Londoners probably know, the statue on top of its slightly more interesting plinth, put there as a memorial 1892–1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Lord Shaftesbury is not Eros but his brother, the Greek god Anteros. Made of aluminium, then a relatively new (and expensive) metal, was called ‘The Angel of Christian Charity’ and the memorial was originally on a roundabout in the centre of the circus where it is now on one side.

‘Eros’ has actually got around quite a bit. Originally in the centre of a mini-roundabout at the centre of the circus, in 1925 he went to Embankment Gardens so they could build an enlarged Underground station, coming back in 1931 to a slightly moved roundabout. During WW2 he took a trip out to Coopers Hill above Egham, while the fountain below (it never really worked as a fountain, and after a single day the drinking cups had been vandalised) was covered up. Eros came back with a great fanfare in 1947, but I think shortly after was moved aside to where he still stands on one leg, though he gets covered up every year for a month or so for Christmas celebrations, as people find him attractive to climb up to or hang things on.

‘Eros’ is not unique as years later several more casts were made from the mould. There are a couple up in Lancashire, one now in storage which used to be in Sefton Park, and another corroding by the seaside at Fleetwood. The most recent, made in the 1980s, in the art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/25e-42.htm

Little Britain is now simply the street these doors are on, running between Aldersgate and King Edward St, but was earlier the name of the whole area to the north up to St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Smithfield, which was once the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. In the distant past it was the centre of the book trade, which later moved south to Paternoster Row, which was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War.

Parts of the crowded warren of streets and alleys still remained when I took these pictures, though it was difficult to find a way into them, with alleys leading from Little Britain and Aldersgate to what remained of Cross Key Square, Montague Place and Albion Buildings.

More to follow…

Continuing the series of post about the black and white pictures I made in 1980, with the pictures and the comments I posted more recently daily on Facebook.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24m-44.htm

Looking across the mouth of St Saviour’s Dock, with the New Concordia Wharf having a short frontage to the river, and beyond its three bays are the those of China Wharf and then Reed’s Wharf.

China Wharf was the site of the controversial building by CZWG, completed in 1988, a rather hideous pink and glass frontage jutting out into the river, which destroys this row of warehouses. At best it could perhaps be called playful, but I rather wish architects would keep such playing to their private dreams rather than inflict them on us. I can imagine sites where it might be appropriate, but this was not one.

There is now a footbridge across St Saviour’s Dock taking the path across and along in front of the New Concordia Wharf, and a further bridge leads across to Downings Roads, one of the oldest river moorings, now more often known as Tower Bridge Moorings, home to around 70 people and the floating Garden Barge Square, with the largest single collection of historic trading vessels on the Thames, some over 100 years old.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24m-45.htm

Another view of St Saviours Dock. The path here was a dead end in 1980, and walkers had to walk back to the right of where this picture was taken and then down Shad Thames to the head of the dock and then a few yards along Jamaica Road before turning back up Mill St. The foot bridge over St Saviour’s Dock was built 1995 and opened the following year but by 2016 needed to be rebuilt.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24n-12.htm

It was I think the neatly shuttered frontage of Sumona Photo-Studio at 168 Brick Lane which attracted me to take this picture, and the feeling that this was a photographer very carefully hiding from the world behind the facade while I was trying hard to look at it.

The building is still there, but converted to a more normal shopfront, for Oceanic Leather Wear.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24n-14.htm

The alley is still there but is now a path and cycle path leading to Pedley St and Spitalfields City Farm. Shoreditch Underground Station had been the terminus of a short underground line leading via Whitechapel to New Cross and New Cross Gate. When I photographed it, the station was closed on Sundays, and in later years only opened at rush hours Monday to Friday and for a few hours on Sundays to serve Brick Lane Market. It finally closed in 2006.

The line is now a part of London Overground, with a station a quarter of a mile away, Shoreditch High St, just off the Bethnal Green Road. Last time I walked past the walls along the alley and the disused station were covered with graffiti, looking rather more colourful than in this picture.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24n-51.htm

The wall at the end of this rather neglected riverside promenade has a mural with what I think were meant to suggest the tops of boats and sails in front of some hills. It was unimpressive but served as a wind-break. Behind it were a few wharves including Wod Wharf, still in use, and then a jetty with a crane, possibly for the former gas works, and then further on, past Deptford Creek (which is hidden by buildings) the chimney of Deptford Power Station. The two cranes towards the left are on Deptford Creek.

There were mothers with prams, fathers with push chairs, old ladies sitting on seats and a few children playing here, a couple of whom came to ask me why I was taking pictures, and insisted on posing for me (see picture below.)

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24n-53.htm

Two children who watched me taking photographs insisted I take their picture underneath a small row of stones they had collected on top of the rail. They are also both holding stones.

They were collecting them to throw in the river mud below where they made a satisfying splat, with mud flying out when they landed.

http://londonphotographs.co.uk/london/1980/24n-56.htm

Another view of the wall with the mural. It might have looked better in colour, though I think it wasn’t highly coloured.

The cranes at right are on Wood Wharf, apparently still in use and those at left I think are on Deptford Creek, with the chimney from Deptford Power Station.

More to follow…