Tag: Housing
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Opportunity Area
I’ve recently bought two second-hand tilt-shift lenses, designed for architectural photography. Mechanically shifting the lens’s optics upwards allows me to photograph tall buildings without distortion. The technique dates back to the nineteenth century, but the current frenzy of high rise building in my local area makes it increasingly useful; allowing me to contrast the human…
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Bonnington Square
Exhibition 1986 Bonnington Square in Vauxhall, south London, was part of an estate of houses built in the 1870s to house railway workers. It became famous in the 1980s when all the houses in it, vacant and awaiting demolition, were squatted. In the late 1970s, the Square was compulsorily purchased by the Greater London Council…
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The battle for the Pullens. June 1986
I’ve recently dug out and scanned these photos I took of the ‘Battle for the Pullens Estate’ 32 years ago. Now a thriving mix of residential and working spaces the Pullens estate came very close to being completely obliterated. On June 10th 1986 squatters attempted to repel police and bailiffs intent on evicting them prior to the…
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Darbishire Place, Whitechapel
An ongoing commission for Niall McLaughlin Architects: to photograph the flats and residents in this Stirling Prize shortlisted Peabody block. Much architectural photography has an arid and ghostly or post apocalyptic feel. The buildings are presented without people, in creepily perfect weather and light, as though they subsist for and of themselves. We are hard-wired to respond…
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A complicated story about donkeys and people
Many NGOs develop problematic ‘mission creep’ as they attempt to burrow down and address the causes – rather than just the symptoms – of the problems they were set up to tackle. A case study from the work supported by the Donkey Sanctuary in Romania lays bare the dilemma; sticking to a clear mission can…