Photographing London
Haringey Born And Raised
I’ve shot London over the years. On 35mm. On Super 8mm. On 16mm. DV, Mini-DV, HDV, 4K. I’ve been lucky enough to work in many studios, big and small and on many sets not to mention on location all over London at different stages of my life.
(Tottenham Court Road, August 2001)
One of my favourite films I ever made was a very London heavy music documentary called Bassweight. Once we finished that film I felt a big chapter of my London life was done. I was born in North, I worked in East, I was living in West and hanging out in South. I felt all city and I needed something new (not long later I moved to South-East Asia for a decade).
Grey And Monochromatic
London is a grey city which lends itself to a monochromatic palette. It has some great clouds, a tube system that I’m addicted to shooting and there’s a lot of glass about. Now of course you can shoot London in very creative and colourful ways. A good friend, Cinema Iloobia always has such great ways of photographing and filming when he is here.
There are many photographers and filmmakers who know how to document the city in multicoloured, vivid ways. I just find it easier to switch off, embrace the crap weather and let my subconscious take over.
Peoples Person
I’m not an architecture guy or a landscape person. I don’t even consider myself a photographer. I simply like pictures and more often I like pictures of people. It’s partly why I got into documentary film-making and it helps that I’m happy going up to randoms in the street to shoot a portrait.
But I’ve never been comfortable shooting portraits here in London. I seem to have a weird ‘don’t piss on your doorstep’ attitude when it comes to approaching people. Probably because it’s my back yard and as a so-called moody Londoner, I’m not one to engage with people. So weirdly enough, London as a location pushes me out of my comfort zone to make me shoot more experimentally. It makes me try different things and attempt to come up with a different way of viewing what I know so well.
(Two good friends of mine, Carter & Don Grizz)