Like 1984, but 5 years later. George Orwell wrote his famous book when the date was some 40 years in the future, but I photographed 1989 at the time and wrote about it badly around 17 years later.
Of course there is no real connection with Orwell (though I do have friends who live in his former house in the North-East.) 1989 is just a kind of account of my wanderings in north-east London on a few days in that year, both in straightforward images and rather convoluted text. What is on line is merely chapter one of this fictional work, which has amused some. It does have certain literary influences, but I can blame nothing on Orwell.
It’s perhaps best just to see it as 20 images of the city and not try to read the rather small text. I put this selection of images and the texts together for another web site, which seems to have folded shortly after these went live, though doubtless just by coincidence. On that site the images appeared in reverse order, but I’m not sure it made a great deal of difference.
In some cases the text does reflect at least some of the thoughts that went through the photographer’s mind as he stood in front of the scene and took the picture. Other parts came long after the event.
Peter Marshall