For five months in 2014, during an unseasonably hot summer and into an unseasonably warm autumn, I went out every other day and photographed my city. I remember doing a lot of standing around while I waited for my Polaroids to dry. I remember having a lot of conversations with people who were intrigued by said Polaroids. “Can you still get the film?” they’d ask, usually followed by: “Have you been to XXXX [a part of London I hadn’t been to]?” You can’t get away from people in London, so I didn’t try to. My photos were filled with Londoners and tourists, visitors and passers through. It was like a neverending pantomime and I fell a little bit in love with every single person I captured.
While I didn’t take any direct portraits of anyone — I certainly would have asked their permission if I had — I did shoot a lot of street scenes which inevitably included other people. My one rule when choosing photos that included people for the book was this: have I captured them in a good light? Is the photo flattering? I did not want to use any photos that anyone would find upsetting if they spotted themselves in the book. That’s what I’d be worried about if I found a picture of me in a book so I wanted to be extra mindful of that for others.
Today Londontown is officially on shelves so I thought it would be fun to share some of the photos that didn’t make it into the finished book. I shot 20,000 images and only had space for 200ish, so I have a few left over ;-)
Today we start with some of the people who stole my heart as I explored the city… xo
