Ten years in the past on Thursday sixteenth Could 2013 I used to be happy to attend the opening of the exhibition Estuary, held to mark the tenth anniversary of the Museum of London Docklands at West India Quay, a brief stroll from Canary Wharf. I used to be delighted to be one of many dozen artists in varied media to be included, with ten of my panoramic photos from my work on the north and south banks of the Thames.
I’d begun photographing the decrease reaches of the Thames again within the Nineteen Eighties, then working largely in black and white and my work focused on the then quick disappearing industrial websites alongside the river. At first I labored on the Kent financial institution on the south of the river, having a specific curiosity within the cement business that occupied and had radically modified a lot of space between Dartford and Gravesend. Later I additionally labored alongside the north financial institution.
Estuary is a time period that has varied definitions, and each its upstream and downstream limits have, as Wikipedia states, “been outlined in another way at completely different occasions and for various functions.” For my very own functions it has been slightly elastic, normally starting on the Thames Barrier and going east so far as it was handy to journey by public transport, on foot or by bicycle from handy stations. In earlier years I went additional alongside the Kent financial institution by automobile in some outings with mates together with Terry King so far as Sheppey.
The exhibition had come as a shock. The ten image in it had been from round 100 photos the Museum of London had purchased from varied of my tasks for its assortment a couple of years earlier and I believe the primary I knew about it was after I acquired the invitation to the opening, or maybe by an e-mail a few weeks earlier than that.
These footage all dated from the early years of this century, these from Kent in 2000 and from Essex in 2004 and all had been in panoramic format. In 2000 I used to be working with two swing lens cameras, a Japanese Widelux F8 and a less expensive Russian Horizon 202. Each work with rotating lens and a curved movie aircraft, invented by give Friedrich von Martens in his Megaskop-Kamera in 1844, however as an alternative of the daguerrotype plates he labored with use commonplace 35mm movie, producing negatives round 56x24mm.
The 2 cameras have an analogous subject of view horizontally round 130 levels and have a cylindrical perspective which renders strains parallel to the movie edges straight however offers an rising curvature to horizontal strains away from the centre of the picture. The picture high quality of the 2 could be very related however the cheaper digital camera has a slightly extra helpful viewfinder.
By 2004 I had two additional items of kit which prolonged my panoramic images. One was a brand new digital camera, the Hassleblad X-Pan, which had usually acquired rave evaluations. I discovered it slightly disappointing at first and it was solely after I added the 30mm wideangle lens that it grew to become helpful for me. The X-Pan is a regular rectilinear digital camera design however offers negatives 65x24mm slightly than the conventional full-frame 36x24mm. The horizontal angle of view it produces with the 30mm is on the limits of rectilinear perspective, earlier than stretching on the edges turns into too obvious, and is significantly lower than the swing lens cameras at 94 levels. The lens comes with a separate viewfinder that matches on the highest of the digital camera, however does make operation rather less handy.
The second, and essential for working alongside the north financial institution was a Brompton folding bicycle, which enabled me to journey the larger distances wanted there. In fact I additionally used this and the X-Pan for later footage elsewhere.
You possibly can see extra of those footage in two sections of the City Landscapes site, which additionally contains work by different photgraphers, each British and abroad. A few of the footage I’ve chosen for right this moment’s publish had been within the Estuary present, however others weren’t – I’ve a slightly bigger physique of labor to pick from than the Museum, a few of which seems in my e-book Thamesgate Panoramas.
The location has separate sections on the Thames Gateway in Essex and Kent, in addition to from my Greenwich Meridian challenge in 1994-6 and a wider number of panoramic work from round London from 1996-2005, although there may be far more that I nonetheless need to put on-line. Some can also be now on Flickr.
Tags: cement, Chafford Hundred, Dagenham, dartford, Essex, estuary, Flick, gravesend, greenhithe, Hassleblad X-Pan, Horizon 202, Kent, London, London Photographs, Mucking, museum of london docklands, northfleet, opening, panoramas, panoramic, peter Marshall, Thames Gateway, Thamesgate Panoramas, two swing lens cameras, West Thurrock, Widelux F8
You possibly can go away a response, or trackback from your personal web site.
