Similarity
A frosted log in Mile End Park, 2009
A motorway in the UK, 2010
City walks in India and New York
A woman walking in Manhattan, 2005
A woman walking in Tamil Nadu, 2008
A few seconds on Brick Lane
Photographed on the corner of Brick Lane and Bacon street in 1985 this market trader is taking a cigarette break and Looking across the street in the distance.
Man on a corner of Brick Lane, 1985
What I find fascinating about these few seconds is that the market trader appears oblivious to the people walking past and sharing his pavement space.
Man on a corner of Brick Lane, 1985
Man on a corner of Brick Lane, 1985
Man on a corner of Brick Lane, 1985
Strangely the moments captured suggest an intimacy between the subjects.
East End Film Festival Poster Competition
I was delighted to receive the photograph (below) from my friend the ‘Gentle Author” who publishes the distinctive and gripping daily blog Spitalfields Life.
East End Film Festival Poster, Bethnal Green Road 2011
The branding for the East End Film Festival this year has drawn inventively from my East End photo archive thanks to a selection by the festivals artistic director Alison Poltock. Below is the original photograph from the Brick Lane of the 1980’s.
Brothers outside shop on Brick Lane, 1985
How different Brick Lane looks today. Below I have inserted the 1985 photograph into today’s Brick Lane.
Brick Lane, 1985/2010 composite
Please send your photos of any East End Film festival poster sites with the 1985 Brick Lane image to me at maxwellphotouk@yahoo.co.uk. The sender of the ‘best’ image will receive a signed print of the original image and the runner up will receive two free tickets to the premiere of East End Lives 3 at the Genesis Cinema on 28 April at 8:30pm. The film was made and directed by Hazuan Hashim and myself. Hazuan will be answering questions at the Q&A following the screening. Incidentally there will be a surprise screening of a new short at the start of the programme featuring the talented singer Chris Savage King.
Stairs to Spitalfields
The stairs below in Pauline House, Spitalfields are rarely used as two lifts service the 17 floors. The concrete steps are mainly an escape mechanism in case of fire or a refuge for smoking youths who wish to depart overcrowded flats and engage in stairwell bonding.
Stairs in Pauline House, 1996
Limited light and utilitarian design combine at times to grace this space with an allure that steps at nearby Spitalfields Christchurch (below) could never compete with.
Christchurch Spitalfields, 1986
The utilitarian luminosity of the Pauline House stairwell is equally a match for the staircase (below) to the first floor of the Whitechapel gallery.
Whitechapel gallery staircase, 1989
Possibly the most malevolent staircase in Spitalfields (below) engaged the bridge joining the old cobbled street Fleet Street Hill near Allen Gardens and Cheshire Street. Regrettably the iconic shortcut was sacrificed to the Crossrail project.
Fleet Street Hill staircase, 1988
