In St. James’s Park. Photo: Dave Hendley, text: David Secombe.
Posted: November 15, 2012 Filed under: London Types, Parks, Street Portraits | Tags: Andre Kertesz, Dave Hendley, David Hockney, Elliott Erwitt, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Harold Pinter, Joe Orton, Robert Frank, The Servant Comments Off on In St. James’s Park. Photo: Dave Hendley, text: David Secombe.
St. James’s Park. © Dave Hendley 1973.
Photography is concerned with appearance rather than truth, and occasionally, one comes across a photograph so mysterious that one is stumped for any sort of comment. One thinks of the Andre Kertesz photo of a shadow behind glass on a balcony in Martinique; of Robert Frank’s picture of a girl running past a hearse and a street sweeper on a drab London street; or Elliott Erwitt’s shot of tourists in a Mexican charnel house, all acknowledged masterpieces. I think the above photo by Dave Hendley has a similar power. Dave offers no insight: he shot it quickly with his Leica as he walked past the men, then moved along before they had time to register that he had taken their photo (‘I was more ruthless back then, I don’t stick my camera in people’s faces any more’.) But it invites speculation, so I am going to offer mine.
There are few clues in Dave’s photo as to the exact period, but somehow we know it belongs to the past: in fact, it is the early 1970s – but it evokes a time slightly earlier than that. I am reminded of the ‘black and white’ 1960s, the lost era of Victim, Pinter’s The Servant, and, especially, Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mister Sloane: a world of furtive encounters afforded a desperately genteel gloss (“the air round Twickenham was like wine”). But I don’t know whether my interpretation is correct and it probably isn’t. More than one photographer has got into trouble because a photo suggested something about its subjects that was misleading or even libellous. Whatever the reality, the picture is simultaneously comic, poignant and slightly disturbing. The sharply assessing gaze of the man on the left is unnerving enough, but I find myself worried by the man on the right, his too-tight tie and his inscrutable smile somehow just wrong. (I am also reminded of this painting.)
As with the photo we ran yesterday, this photograph is a precious survivor of a cull of Dave’s early work which the photographer carried out with youthful ruthlessness. That was many years ago and, needless to say, Dave now regrets this; fortunately, this image survived as a print which Dave recently discovered in his mum’s attic.
… for The London Column.
See also: Welcoming Smiles, Robert Graves.
Up My Street. Photo: Dylan Collard (4/5)
Posted: September 27, 2012 Filed under: Shops, Street Portraits, Vanishings | Tags: Archway, Blue Carbuncle, Dylan Collard, Tesco's, The Security Shop Comments Off on Up My Street. Photo: Dylan Collard (4/5)
The Security Shop, Junction Rd., Archway. © Dylan Collard.
Dylan Collard:
The Security Shop is, as you would expect, a local locksmiths and one that only opens when the owner fancies opening up. He doesn’t really open in the winter because it’s too cold just to sit in the store … The store is opposite the Wedding Shop and the Blue Carbuncle both of which feature in the series, but that have now both been forced to close. Unlike the other shopkeepers on the road, the owner here is hoping for the arrival of a Tesco’s as it will bring in more customers.
Up My Street is Dylan Collard‘s project documenting shops between Kentish Town and Archway. His exhibition The Twelfth Man is currently showing at Exposure Gallery, 22-23 Little Portland Street, London W1. Dylan is represented by the Vue agency.
Up My Street. Photo: Dylan Collard (2/5)
Posted: September 25, 2012 Filed under: London Types, Shops, Street Portraits | Tags: Archway Roundabout, charity shops, Dylan Collard, Rowan Arts, Stories of the Holloway Road Comments Off on Up My Street. Photo: Dylan Collard (2/5)
Laurence Evans, Second Chance, Archway Roundabout. © Dylan Collard.
From Born and Bred – Stories of Holloway Road:
Laurence Evans was born in Whittington Hospital in 1952. He lived first in Poynings Road and then moved to Caledonian Road where he has lived since 1962. He has volunteered at Second Chance charity shop at 7-9 St John’s Way, in the middle of Archway roundabout, since 2008.
“We’ve got a couple of customers, like a lady called Jenny who comes in and has a cup of tea or coffee and a couple of biscuits, she comes maybe three times a week and there’s a couple of other people who just come in for a cup of tea and they just like the atmosphere and the service.”
“Barry [the manager] and one of our volunteers Basil, they do all of the window displays and a lot of people have commented that the windows are very nice, and ask ‘do you have a professional come in?’ and no it’s just done by volunteers who have a knack for doing window displays. I don’t think I could do that. After Christmas we just did a purely black and white window and people commented that it was a very nice difference. A lot of people say ‘Oh I like that in the window, is it for sale? We don’t want to disturb your window display’ and I say ‘No, everything in the window is for sale’. So you have to take it out of the window and sell it to the customer and then try and find something to replace it.”
The above interview is taken from Born and Bred, an oral history project by Rowan Arts documenting the life of the Holloway Road. You can hear more at www.storiesofhollowayroad.com. Up My Street is Dylan Collard‘s own project documenting shops between Kentish Town and Archway. His exhibition The Twelfth Man is currently showing at Exposure Gallery, 22-23 Little Portland Street, London W1. Dylan is represented by the Vue agency.
Rotherhithe. Photo: Geoff Howard, text: Charles Jennings. (2/5)
Posted: September 4, 2012 Filed under: London Types, Pavements, Shops, Street Portraits | Tags: Charles Jennings, corner shops, gentrification, Geoff Howard, London docklands, Rotherhithe, SE16 Comments Off on Rotherhithe. Photo: Geoff Howard, text: Charles Jennings. (2/5)
Corner shop, Brunel Road, Rotherhithe, London, July 1974. © Geoff Howard.
Gentrification by Charles Jennings:
Two geezers in overalls flicking litter into a truck (‘Could’ve bleeding stayed in bed, didn’t know it was only this one’). Keeping their ends up against the taggers and bomb artists on the main road. ‘That shouldn’t be allowed ’cause they laid out a lot of money’. You’ve got your haggard local shops, giving out, giving in, ‘Houses & Flats Cleared, Apply Within’, a stupidly optimistic fingerpost. The coughing of the birds, the single, muted noise of a car driving along in first a block away. ‘Big Reductions on Room Size’, with a tiny old lady picking at some cream-vinyl dining chairs stuck out on the pavement as if they were poisonous, a dysfunctional boy pulling at the hair of a girl in a newsagent’s doorway, the sullen rumble of a train. Who’s going to be passing through? Dead cars, living cars, stuff you do to your car, garages. Those jaded avenues of small houses, nervy pre-dereliction, the effort to keep up. The midget shops, the kebabs, the roaming crazies (woman in a tank top scouring the bins: ‘Fucking said to him, “Fucking listen”‘). This tomb of obscurity: drowning in toxins, grimed-up, catching screams from the estate on the west side, the traffic barrelling to hell on the roundabout. Sort myself out a nice K-reg Astra. It’s shy of life, but only because it’s keeling over.
… for The London Column. © Charles Jennings 2012.
Rotherhithe Photographs: 1971-1980 by Geoff Howard is available direct from the photographer at £25.
The London Column 