Berwick Street Market, Soho
At the start of the Environment unit, I planned to focus a project around everyday people within their everyday environment; I also wanted to capture a sense of ‘Englishness’ within my upcoming work. With this in mind, I deciding to look into Simon Roberts’ work who focuses mainly on the relationship between people and their local areas. His England focused project ‘We English’ focuses on the English people’s connection to their homeland, linked with themes of belonging, identity and the notion of what it is like to be English. After researching ‘We English’, I was inspired to think more about how I could represent my local environment within my photographs, first thinking about using Rochester as a location. I then decided to investigate how I could use an exaggerated version of Roberts’ use of perspective, which led me to conduct a series of test shoots from a height which allowed me to look down onto people walking by. I found the work of Mark Power during a contextual studies lecture. His worked reminded me of Roberts’ and I liked how it had a more negative look on how people effect their local environment. I then looked into the work on American photographer Joe Deal who also focused on how human life effects nature and landscapes. Deal also used a higher perspective in his work which I found intriguing. I found the work of Andre Kertesz a few years ago and have always remembered one of his photographs which was shot from the Eiffel tower, shooting downwards, which caused me to look deeper into his work and specifically on the photos which he took from higher perspectives. His work have me the idea to shoot more street focused images and also with a classic black and white look. I found my favourite images from high perspective was achieved by shooting photos from on top of shop stores and rooftop carparks. I decided to shoot some images in Trafalgar Square next to the lion sculptures as I wanted somewhere where I could get a large amount of people within each frame. While shooting in Trafalgar Square, I decided to shoot some street photos while walking back to Oxford circus to get the Tube. Not thinking much about them until the reviewing the street photos, I was really intrigued with the outcome of the photos and wanted to pursue the avenue of street photography. While deciding on themes I wanted to look into, I found it interesting how at the start of the unit, I was taking street photos of people from a far and then gradually through the weeks I ended up shooting much closer to my subjects, as if going through the weeks I gained more confidence taking photos on the streets. I decided to look into the work of Matt Stuart and Ronya Galka who both focus on London, although Stuart uses colour and Galka uses black and white. Matt Stuart’s work was the most inspiring of the two as I found that there seemed to often be an interesting story behind his work (as found in interviews with him) and I also liked his use of humour within his shots. While researching London street photography, I was approached by a Soho based hairdressers who wanted a series of images based on Soho for their store on Wardour street. While shooting these images, I found Soho to be an amazing place for street photography as it has such a varied amount of people, from businessmen to drag queens, which I knew I wanted to focus on for my final four images.
My final four images for the Environment unit focus on Berwick Street market in Soho, London. Berwick Street market is a traditional food market in the heart of Soho. Made up of around thirty stalls, traders have been selling goods in the exact same spot since the eighteenth century. Although still selling fruit and vegetables, the market has had a revamp since its beginning, it now sells food from around the world, such as Egyptian pittas, Jamaican jerk chicken and Korean stir-fry. While shooting in Soho, I felt a great sense of community within the market and I also appreciated how just a five-minute walk from Oxford Street, there was still a ‘traditional English’ feeling to the city. Berwick Street Market is a food hub for local residents or workers and is also a place for people who come from completely different lifestyles to socialise while grabbing a meal for lunch. Anna Boyle of ‘So High Soho’ 9 Berwick St, describes the market as the ‘Closets you’ll get to time travelling’. While shooting at the location, I wanted to focus on the traders behind the stalls and also the customers in front of the stalls, portraying the connection between the two.
Joe Haines 