London Index Project II

Here are some recent pictures from my London Index project.

Taking these pictures has certainly made me think about the morality of what I'm doing. The last picture is of the aftermath of an accident where a pedestrian has been knocked down. At first glance, it looks like nothing is happening. When you then notice the police tape and look closer still at the smashed windscreen of the car it becomes clear something shocking has taken place.

I'd taken the picture before realising exactly what had happened. Now I'm not sure how I feel about including it. Someone was injured to an unknown extent. The driver of the car is out of sight and living the first few terrible minutes of one of the most significant events of their lives. It's easy to imagine the tragedy unfolding. 

It makes me think of the times I have retreated from taking pictures I know I wouldn't be comfortable showing to a wider audience. My most vivid memory is that of a young man sat on the steps to a building just south of Kensington High Street. He had blood streaming from his nose. As I passed him, we looked at each other and I instantly knew I couldn't possibly put my camera between us and take his picture. He was too vulnerable and I too shy.

I've missed a sobbing girl running toward her boyfriend, arguments, fights, incapable drunks, virtually all the rawest moments you can imagine. I've ruminated over them all wondering whether I should or shouldn't have pushed the shutter. The thing I can't resolve is whether these moments are, despite their location, public or private.

I want to make a balanced document of this city and I have to Include the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. However, I can't do this without feeling a sense of respect for whoever I'm pointing the camera at. I'm in perpetual awe at the fact that Londoners continue to rub along together despite their differences. I think it's only achieved by the vast majority of people living here being fundamentally good human beings. Editing their lives by capturing them in a fraction of a second sometimes doesn't seem fair.

At My Feet

I've been collecting pictures of stuff I've found on the floor. I seem to be settling more on images of industrial detritus. It's the sort of stuff that doesn't seem to matter, but I'm finding myself drawn to looking for it.

These objects are probably produced in their thousands, employing hundreds of people to make them, shipped worldwide to fulfil a single and utterly disposable purpose. These things are the Mayflies of manufacturing. They consume huge amounts of energy and time to come into being, only to be discarded without a thought.

I don't think that these things epitomise waste. They perform a purpose, usually one of protecting something of greater value from damage and, by their design, cost the very least they can to manufacture. It's actually a fantastic example of efficiency. Their disposal troubles me, but the disposal of everything troubles me. Ideally, I'd like to see everything we consume find its way back to the bottom of the food chain.

However banal these objects could be considered, I have found a intriguing beauty in them. Something designed to be purely functional inherently lends itself to the purity of form. They're principally designed to solve a problem, so aesthetics are the first things to be lost in their production.

By putting all these images together, I've realised they've started to look slightly hieroglyphic. Their shapes are so basic, they being to resemble characters with distinct meaning, but not just a letter in a language. They're more like symbols for something universally understood.

You can see more on my Flickr stream (link at the top of the page), on the Backspaces app and on Instagram on this hashtag - #i_found_pauljames

Hipstamatic Portraits

I've been messing around with some ideas for portraiture on Instagram. I've been taking using the Tinto 1884 lens and D-Type Plate film on Hipstamatic, sticking the results through Snapseed and publishing on Instagram in sets of three so it looks nice in the grid view. I also published these on the brilliant App Backspaces - find it here - and the pictures have since been featured on the AMPt Community website.

The Backspaces App is way of publishing stories via your iPhone. I've been waiting for this and didn't realise. I like to shoot in a collecting sort of way. I'll often take pictures which I intend to put together as a set and it takes time to get enough. If I've got pictures I want to publish in between, I either have to wait or break up the set.

Backspaces allows you to do what you can't on Instagram; put your pictures in order before you publish. You also have the option of adding titles, text and captions.

The community on Backspaces also seems lively and feedback is not limited to comments like 'Awesome!' and 'Cool shot!' which, admittedly, is kind of nice but not very useful. I've found it a place where you can be honestly critical on peoples work without being considered a hater.

The subjects above are Neil Atkinson, a dude I met outside The Queen of Hoxton and Chris Perkins, lead singer of Sheffield band Section 60.

I've no plans for these pictures as yet. I want to find a way of standardising them so Im getting the best results out of each subject. I am liking the russian doll triptych effect though. I think it might have some mileage.

Find more on Instagram and Backspaces. My user name is @i_am_pauljames on both.

London Index Project

For the last few years I've been working on a street photography project of London.

I've lived here for over thirteen years and for the majority of that time my main mode of transport has been Public. For the first few years, the only physical knowledge I had of the city was measured in time and by the tube map.

Since then, my current job has allowed me to travel through the streets on a daily basis, seeing its people and its buildings in relation to one another and to photograph the fleeting moments that happen while history is slowly being made.

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The viewpoint I've had is from the passenger seat of a vehicle, which has made this city into one long film. I'm being dragged through an endless projection of events which sees time marked in both its ephemeral immediacy and its grinding unstoppable plod. I've made myself a custodian of both by recording some trace elements of the millions of events that happen every single second, of every single minute, of every single day. A tiny fraction of the hundreds of years of things happened, happening and about to happen.

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Each image is layered with strata of time. I've caught the present by freezing an individual at a particular moment in time, who is then set against the background of the city which could be weeks, months or even centuries old.

London, like any city, is like an organism; constantly in a state of decay and regeneration. I've tried to make a document which reflects that change while considering the possibility that the pictures I'm taking may be viewed by an audience decades from now.

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I've titled each picture with its date stamp. The exact moment in time it was taken.

This collection is intended to be a book. Hopefully, one of many books called London Index.

I'll be adding these and other images to my website in due course. Check here.

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Cardboard camera build

I was given a Sharan Wide 35 for my birthday. Now, I'm a sausage fingered idiot when it comes to making stuff like this. I also have a tendency to read instructions so carefully they become slightly meaningless - then go ahead anyway - fucking it up to a start again level or bodging it as I go along. Neither of these are great, but at least by starting again I avoid the feeling of bitterness towards the thing I know is... not quite right... for as long I own it.

It's a build-your-own pinhole camera made from card. It comes as die-cut sheets of black card, some plastic bits and two handy sheets of sticky tape, pre-cut into the correct sizes for the build. That's a nice touch. A)  You don't have to provide your own materials and, B) Peel off sticky things please me. There's also the pinhole made in a thin piece of plastic. It's F120 sized...Man, I'm already looking forward to seeing the prints... and there are a couple of elastic bands to keep the camera from popping open while loaded.



Here we go...

Christ! There's a good chance I'll be putting a squashed cardboard mess in the bin tonight.

We start by making the film holder. Pretty straight forward, but I have a niggling doubt about the orientation of the component in the back of where the canister is going to be. I feel like I'm forcing it, but nevertheless, it goes together and the bits which are supposed to move, do.

Putting together the front case is equally straight forward. I'm actually finding the Ikea style graphic instruction pretty easy to follow. They're very efficiently designed and flow easily between steps.

Hold on. Oh no. I've been using the wrong size bits of sticky. I've got to a point where starting again is not an option without potentially tearing something...Balls...I realise the black tape I've been using has been made to fit the joints exactly, but I reckon it's finished construction is going to prevent any light leakage anyway. It's cool.... It's cool....

It's not cool.

This is the detail that could forever taint my enjoyment of it. It's a horribly tense moment. I'm half way through so it's going to get freaking finished whatever.

Now the internal box which holds the pin hole. It's starting to look like a camera that might possibly work. I was wondering how a cardboard box stood a chance of being leak proof enough for use with film, but it's turning into something sturdy enough to cope if I'm reasonably careful with it.

Done.

Dammit! I've put the dark slide in back to front! I can live with this.

It's my fastidious attention to detail that gives me the greatest pleasure. I've also just noticed I've left a coffee mug in shot above. My God. This is why I can't have nice things.

I've loaded it with some out of date colour negative film. I'll post the results.