Olly & Lexi

My first encounter was with Olly with his daughter Lexi, by the Warrick Reservoir at the start of the Lea Valley trail. I have two boys, so any time I see a father with a daughter I am immediately drawn to them.

Lexi and Olly

I would very much have loved a daughter. I can imagine how much fun we would have had going shopping together (I have a very good eye but am a terribly influence; financial prudence has long since been banished to the whore house!) and, should she have been so inclined, given her dating advice on how to get the best from the men in her life. But two boys were enough so instead those experiences must come vicariously.

Lexi laughed and toyed with the camera via a vivacious and effervescent smile.

Psychogeography

I’m still in the midst of my project with Hannah, far from ready to conclude it, but her circumstances and location make it hard to arrange shoots together and I can feel myself getting rusty. I needed an excuse. A premise on which to build a reason for shooting people that has meaning beyond them just being there when I lifted my camera and opened the shutter.

In his book ‘Lights Out for the Territory’ Iain Sinclair co-opted the psychogeography movement that emphasised interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. The book is built around a series of long walks across London which provide an opportunity to explore these interpersonal connections.

What better premise to build a photo walk on?

I started planning. Having consumed most of my free weekends with high energy but ultimately feckless and fruitless dating, I was now motivated to do something different. Be happy being single, be happy walking, be happy with interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes that give rise to human interactions like Brownian Motion, random but still so full of purpose and consequence; the entropic arrangement of energy states converting photons to silver halide crystals on emulsion and thus to expressive reminders of our humanity.

My target was to start in Walthamstow or thereabouts and walk down the Lea Valley to Lower Clapton, then head west to Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill, where I spent my mid to late 20s, and from there to Finsbury Park, Highgate and ultimately Parliament Hill for the golden hour. All in it was going to be about 18 miles, a solid effort.

Black Horse Road to Parliament Hill: 18 miles

The route was set. Boots were cleaned, provisions purchased. A neat flask with a broad opening designed to facilitate the ingress of food rather than drink meant a good meal of fresh pasta would keep me going. Plenty of water; some fruit, an almond croissant (regarded as de facto breakfast), sunglasses, pain killers (for my feet) a box of Portra 160, a light meter (because I still don’t trust the one in the newly acquired Mamiya 7II), said camera, camera strap, phone, battery pack, sun screen and a waterproof (because you can just never know).

Feeling like a true adventurer I managed to get to Black Horse Road tube at 10.30am from my home in Horsham, no mean feat that required a 7am start. The sun was already high and shining brightly; I would need to be creative with finding natural shade.

The next posts will all follow the route and the people I met along the way. All were simply short lived but hugely rewarding connections. Fleeting moments of human interaction that remind you of your connection to the world.

Thin Negative

Shame about the marks on this image; the lab believes that it’s because the image is significantly underexposed and that as a result result dust and other marks show up. I thought they looked like developing fluid on the neg but none of the other images have them so 🤷‍♂️. Shame as I love the way her face emerges from the darkness.

Before Temple

Sunday morning at the end of summer, rakish light bisects the buildings of the south London skyline. I notice the man first, barefoot and brightly lit but on his phone so I hang back pretending to wait for a bus. Then the boy appears, also barefoot, the light making him glow like an angel. Patience; the conversation is animated but it can’t last indefinitely. He’s still talking when he waves and a car pulls up at the side of the road. The conversation ends; obviously he’s been giving directions. I chance an approach to ask if there is time for a portrait, they are happy to oblige but the conversation is brief, as fast as the light falls I shoot a frame and they are gone as if in a getaway car.

Purgatorial Shadows

Sun baked concrete, grey and tough as an elephants hide, hummed whirred with the cicada like chirrup of small wheels. Standing and observing these freewheeling souls crisscrossing the skate park in undulating lines one figure stands out; his lean torso and wiry arms garlanded with the lines of self-harm, his face a rough hue of effort and toil and yet, set steadily and with steel like determination, a pair of resolute blue eyes, blade sharp and piercing. I speak to him and he is at once conciliatory and engaged. His story is obvious; a huge sea of mental health trauma in which he barely floats, mostly sinks and drowns. Skating keeps him afloat. His nature is easy to see as sincere and authentic but I sense he spends a good deal of time, rocking back and forth like a purgatorial shadow.

My Boy

He’s growing up fast, gaining a sense of himself and the man he wants to be. I’m so proud of him. It makes my heart swell to bursting.

Bonnie & Clyde

They cruised easily through the park, the faint whine of the electric motor taking the strain off life. Like Bonnie & Clyde he was driving shoeless, she comfortably nestled on the back seat, owning her own space. Youth mixed blessedly with effortless equanimity.