Greenwich buildings sink under scaffolding (multiple exposure)

A couple of years ago (or more) we were sitting on a bench in Cutty Sark Gardens looking at the broad sweep of the river. An Australian approached us and said “Where can I find the Cutty Sark mate?”

We pointed ironically to the scaffolding and the still smouldering ruins of the boat.

He’d come half way around the world from a remote station in the Australian outback to see the Cutty Sark. More fool him some might say, for not checking his itinerary first.

Two or more years later there is still a pile of scaffolding where the Cutty Sark should be and it is no longer possible to sit on a bench and view the broad sweep of the river. The former because the renovation seems to be taking for ever and rumours abound as to why. There are big sums of money and rapacious consultants involved. The latter because the entire river front is behind hoardings.

And looking round, much of Greenwich town centre is also covered up. It seems to have happened overnight or maybe I just blinked.

I decided to take a walk around town centre and photograph the damage.

St Alfege?

Looking for Hawksmoor? Forget it

Walking out of St Alfege Passage, the first thing you see is more scaffolding above the market

Even the heritage phone boxes are in a poor state, missing doors and glass.

Soooo, lets find the Tourist Office to ask what there is to actually see in Greenwich since we’ve come all this way. Errrr….

Discover Greenwich?

Doesn’t work for me either. Walking down a bit further, it is good to see what we are missing.  Tacky pictures beneath barbed wire and surveillance cameras.

Before, during or after?

Cutty Sark Gardens is full of signs helpfully pointing in all directions

Directions to nothing much

The ‘gardens’ themselves are bleak beyond belief and have been for a long long time. This is not a world-class attraction by any stretch of the imagination. It is also the first sight of Greenwich for anyone disembarking from the ferry.

The long march south

Looking in the opposite direction, this is the ‘view’ across the river. Some poor saps have had to carry their buggy up the steps from the foot tunnel. The lift isn’t working.

We mean foot tunnel

The Old Royal Naval College doesn’t get any better if you want to slip down past the pier

Not the entrance

The views of the river and Canary Wharf just get better…

Canary Wharf

Nice bollard, looks like a ….

The entrance

Once we get to The ORNC things start to get slightly surreal

Uber scaffolding

There are some guys blocking access even as I took photographs

Then came the Pièce de résistance…

I went into the courtyard of Trinity College of Music to take some photos of the scaffolding hidden away even in there. I sat on the bench and loaded a film and a security guy came out but just to play with The Dog rather than order us off the premises. I started taking photos while Kate chatted about dogs with him and then another security guy came out and told me that I couldn’t take photos… He ignored the dog. And his colleague.

“Its the rules” he said, “I don’t make them, its the college’s rules”.

“Security” he replied when asked. I forewent the “I’m a photographer, not a terrorist” meme.

Could I see the rules? “No”.

I’d have to go to the East Gate or the West Gate to get permission to photograph and it was, in his view, doubtful that I would get it.

Naturally, I chose the wrong gate but we got a little closer to the truth. The supervisor at the East Gate reckoned I’d have to go to the West gate for permission. He didn’t have a clue why I shouldn’t be allowed to photograph in the courtyard, but another guy at the gate thought it had “something to do with copyright, innit”. This is far more likely since the place makes loads of money from the film industry using the location for historical shoots. I’m not quite sure how yours truly impacts on Hollywood, but rules are rules.

I couldn’t be arsed to schlep all the way back to the West Gate. I have a sneaking suspicion I would have been referred back to the East gate anyways.

Trinity College of Music – a small suggestion. Brief your security staff properly so they are confident about what they are enforcing. They will be less defensive and less shit scared of ending up on a YouTube video looking and sounding like total dickheads given the current paranoia about filming in public places. At the very least, place a sign somewhere visible saying ‘No Photography’.

What was the big secret? just shitloads of scaffolding.

Rules are rules

So, shoot me…

I’ve had to make this post part 1 of a series. In just two and a half hours I have enough photos to fill several posts. Particularly when you walk down the Thames path a little way. I don’t suppose the average tourist would get that far:

Thames path hi-jacked by developers

Literally, up the garden path. How have they got away with this? The Thames path is now so convoluted with ‘short-term’ closures for ‘improvements’ that you might get more enjoyment walking down the main road approach to the Blackwall Tunnel.

So… for three times the price of a coffee in Deptford, where I can overlook an insanely interesting and vibrant High Street and market, I could do the same in a World Heritage site just down the road. I could take in that olde-worlde town centre full of scaffolding, cladding, tat-shops, fast-food tex-mex outlets, more scaffolding and even more wardens than The Dog could shake a stick at. If only I could see it.

Under wraps

Now why do I think of Christo and Jeanne-Claude…?

Think I’ll stick to Deptford till 2012 has gone. As somebody who lives nearby I can see a dark humour in all of this. As a visitor attraction, Greenwich is currently a massive fail. I hope nobody from UNESCO drops by for vacation. I also hope local people are being employed for all this new work.

Cutting edge CCTV in Deptford hehe

I’ve learned so much more about photography and its basic principles (ie exposure, composition and development) over the last eighteen months through using film, particularly by restricting myself to a couple of film types and developers. I wish the same could be said about restricting the cameras. Film got me into medium format photography and as usual I immersed myself and found real love ® using vintage cameras, some over 70 years old. Lots of them…

Film is very unforgiving if you fuck anything up so you learn to get it right. Like not using fixer to develop the film, or not leaving the lenscap on, or not keeping the light off in the darkroom… no names.

So perversely I’m posting some lo-fi Holga images

I want to explore colour more. William Eggleston’s new(ish) exhibition ‘Paris’ is so hugely inspirational that I want to do some. Eggleston can afford the colour processing, I can’t, so I’ll have to use a digi.

But the Holga is such fun!

And the Holga is one of the few cameras that can be carried around Spitalfields without drawing the attention of the private security fuckwits. It’s a toy isn’t it. Unlike the 1000′s of high megapixel phones that are snapping away constantly round there. After all, if I were covertly scoping the place I’d really try to draw attention to myself wouldn’t I? Fucking idiots.

Brick Lane too. The last bit that is any good, up at the Bagel end.

Of course, I will still be using film. The Portra’s grain is to die for too (ISO 800). Messy negs, I blame the lab.

Greenwich Millenium Village

The colour is the photograph. This is why I like Saul Leiter’s colour work so much. Form and structure are so often obscured by colour. Larry Sultan, Martin Parr and ‘big colour’ exponents excepted.

Laban, Deptford (library window)

I expect the library window is mended now, it is getting on for 2.5 years ago I photographed this during the Deptford Festival in 2007.

The spiders web was shot with a lensbaby. Funny thing with the lensbaby 3G – it looks like an alien sex aid. I was snapping around Shoreditch one Sunday with it on the camera, and since it was the only camera I had I took a photo of anti-terror police pulling a guy out of a Mercedes just off Rivington Street. The copper came over and although this was before the widespread abuse of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 I was expecting the worst. I was fairly well bang to rights in the ‘dumb things to be caught doing’ sense. After the spiel, he wanted to look at the photos I had been taking so I handed him the camera with the lensbaby (for those that don’t know it looks like this, not at all like a traditional lens). I did this because these were the paramilitary police in dark blue combat gear, shaved heads and machine guns, not out of any willingness to help. The copper took one look at the rig and said ‘Uhhhh, OK, forget it…’

Win! He couldn’t admit he hadn’t a clue what to do with it and I didn’t push it.

I then got a bollocking for not respecting the privacy of the poor fucker they had pinned to the car. In public… In Shoreditch… Just off the High Street. Obviously I said nothing to hint at glaring flaw in his argument. FFS!

And the biggest irony? I’d missed the shot anyway.

Or maybe their x-ray vision spotted that I had a bag full of camera gear because I was on my way to a photo assignment. Either way, I’m a photographer not a terrorist.

“I’m guessing you must get this all the time” one of them joked, “being a photographer…“

Yep. But how did you know?

“No wonder you get pissed off – sorry!”

FFS!

I didn’t engage and refused to give my details as I’m entitled not to do. But I did waggle my press card and they didn’t take it further. Maybe the press card helped.

I pushed Tri-X to 1600 and in a fit of madness developed it in Rodinal. Since I was also guessing exposure and zone focusing the results are somewhat ‘interesting’. The images look slightly better resized when you click them.

It was so good to see so many photographers present. I’ve been ticked off before in some forums by one or two UK snappers who seem to believe that police abuse of Section 44 powers is somehow an imaginary leftie conspiracy because it hasn’t happened to them personally. Duh, wake up and smell the coffee those people.

Petruscos Eye Project getting ready to go out in the crowd

There are already countless photos from the gathering circulating round the web, many a technically better and certainly more colourful record of the event than mine. As we might expect from a gathering of photographers, most of whom know exactly how to get their work out there very quickly.

View from the balcony as the gathering got underway

Interestingly I saw only one policeperson, looking harassed. They stayed away possibly realising that they would have been snapped to hell and back twice, because we could. Bizarrely, on the steps of the National Portrait Gallery, a security goon told somebody to stop taking photographs. How to draw attention to yourself. What a total fucking idiot, and a good demonstration of the intelligence level and (lack of) craft of our security staff.

Probably the only place in London where you can point a huge zoom at a child

We managed to be interviewed twice too. It is heartening to see young people getting out in the crowds and actually talking to people. It warmed the cockles of my journo partner’s heart. There is hope

Interviewing

Condoms were available too from the London House of Common Sluts – Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which was nice.

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

We left Gizmo at home unfortunately. A potential large police presence and a pit-bull aren’t the best combo. There was one demo dog there though (non-threatening) who’s photo has now gone round the globe several zillion times judging by the number of retweets on Twitter.

I’m a dog not a terrorist

I started with the gorilla and I’ll end with the gorilla.

Nothing to photograph here, move along now

I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! invite all Photographers to a mass photo gathering in defence of street photography.

Street photography…