A Sunday Walk in Eastend London...

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 6th Feb 2006 - 16:41 GMT

great shots. The first one is killer (like the Krays, but photographic)

Lawrence: 6th Feb 2006 - 16:54 GMT

re: tex: "is all of london this grungy and depressing?"

depressing for you, joy for me ;)

tex: 6th Feb 2006 - 17:00 GMT

to Lawrence:
i guess we are all used to where we live,no offense but if i lived there i think sooner or later i would of comited suicide.

james lipton from england: 6th Feb 2006 - 17:03 GMT

FOR TEX:
HOW DARE YOU!london is one of ,if not the most beautifull city in the world,ever created by humans.you should come here one day and see for yourself

des: 6th Feb 2006 - 17:09 GMT

who?james or tex?
tex where are you from anyway?

Lawrence: 6th Feb 2006 - 17:09 GMT

re: tex, haha, not all of London is as grimey... this is a series of photos from the Eastend which is a great deal less salubrious as the West. Prodominantly working class, wrecked by the Blitz, many a failed housing scheme... think Bronx, but with charm... and thats why I love it so.

On my next few shoots I'll try and get more of a variety... so we can see how the 'other half' live.

Hobart: 6th Feb 2006 - 17:16 GMT

I, for one, tend to disregard opinions made by anyone with a name like "Tex".

des: 6th Feb 2006 - 17:46 GMT

im from torontooooo,i meant that someone with the name of tex is probably from dalas texas,TEX-TEXAS!

elaine: 6th Feb 2006 - 17:47 GMT

oops, sorry, i meant my invitation to tex. being a resident of east london i see lots and lots and lots of visitors loving this area, traipsing around the markets, going to the clubs etc. no need for the haters to come. let them stay where they are or go somewhere else. i'm easy. the world is plenty big enough for people who don't fancy the look of london to avoid it.
p.s. lawrence- liking these images v much, quite different to mine

tex: 6th Feb 2006 - 18:03 GMT

why is everyone making fun of me?first off james i think every city in the world was made by HUMANS.second ,no des im not from texas,im from chicago,and hobart what's wrong with ''tex''?actually it stands for my initials,thomas edward xavier.im not bad mouthing london i never even been there.all im saying is that it just looks sad,you know rainy all the time,i mean when you see mr bean,or alo alo ,you know it is just like,melancolic feeling or something,but yes i will indeed go and check out london elaine and lawrence and sorry for my ignorance.

elaine: 6th Feb 2006 - 18:12 GMT

apologies accepted, tex, for my part.
london can be a bit gloomy in a way, but not always a bad way. actually we need 60% extra rain before the summer or we have yet another drought. london has a touristy side, but it is also about a lot more than that, as a port it is more than 2000 years old, so the social mix is particularly vibrant. it is historic but not stuck in the past, dreamy but commercial, and super urban, but big and sprawly and full of odd bits of nature.
i hope you do make it here one day, and that you get to see a side of london that is more complex and interesting than big ben and west end plays.

tex: 6th Feb 2006 - 18:20 GMT

yeah you guys got me going now,sounds interesting,i was actually going to check out ireland this summer but i my as well do the whole united kingdom.now that would be a tour to take pictures.thanks for the tips elaine!

elaine: 6th Feb 2006 - 18:25 GMT

kewel. do a bit of homework first, and you will get a lot out of your trip.

Cheesy_Member: 6th Feb 2006 - 18:27 GMT

Well if your going to do that tex, Check out Edinburgh

seriously dude: 6th Feb 2006 - 18:40 GMT

ha london engaland,my background!my origin! my roots!to bad i never been there but i feel like i belong there.oh england,england,how could you just abandone your children in america and just leave,beautifull pictures!

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 6th Feb 2006 - 18:47 GMT

Tex, If you're doing the UK, you have to go to Wales, you know, to get the full set. Actually, you may have to pop down to the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands as well. And I hear that Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tuvalu have the British flag as part of their national flag, so you have to visit them, too. And if you decide to do this UK world tour, then I'm coming with you.

des: 6th Feb 2006 - 19:04 GMT

i lived in spain for two years,everyone there said it belong to them,but every english person i talk to says it belongs to them,last of what i heard most of the people in gibraltar wanted english domination,what is the deal after all?and is it officialy english now?

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 6th Feb 2006 - 19:09 GMT

It is British territory. You have to show your passport to go there (I've been). However, the Spanish (quite rightly) want it back. It's a very strategic rock. With monkeys. and a Tescos.

elaine: 6th Feb 2006 - 19:09 GMT

i believe so, but i don't see why it should be. this is one of the problems with imperialism, is it not? when the residents end up being genetically from far away, but culturally local. good luck to them sorting it out.

elaine: 6th Feb 2006 - 19:10 GMT

i think it should be given to the monkeys. after all, they have suffered a lot at human hands. like that monkey who was hanged for being a frenchman.

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 6th Feb 2006 - 19:26 GMT

well, he didn't speak english.

elaine: 6th Feb 2006 - 19:29 GMT

it's a compelling argument... and it sounds oddly familiar!

jack: 6th Feb 2006 - 19:29 GMT

hahahaha the comments here are hilariously funny. i enjoy reading all of you talking back and forth and defending your lives and towns and names. well the photos were nice and i liked the cobblestones in the street and the way every picture seemed to screem, ' get me otta here, i want to go where that jet is flying to ", and the launderette, no martinizing? per che? the small streets and i wish my name was tex.

Lawrence: 6th Feb 2006 - 19:35 GMT

erm, well that weren't the sentiment... but there ya go!

jeeff: 7th Feb 2006 - 01:13 GMT

the subway photos are my faves. i like the canned light and the retro-futurist subway cars. are they all like that in london?

ps. from the gherkin directly to a graf truck - you've been studying the citynoise memes well.

elaine: 7th Feb 2006 - 10:17 GMT

not all, jeeff, but quite a few. hardly anything in london is completely uniform due to it being old and big.
i like this post a lot, it's exciting to see someone else's take. the underground station is bethnal green, which i have pics of here but a fresh eye captures something different, in what is, after all, a fairly limited visual environment. the only thing is, lawrence, i am dying to rearrange them in a more logical time sequence... (not a criticism, just my ocd coming out)

Lawrence: 7th Feb 2006 - 10:40 GMT

yea, I get ya, post few pictures, more often... single subjects as it were.

it was my 1st post though, so I just thought ram 'em all up there.

elaine: 7th Feb 2006 - 10:57 GMT

not at all!
it is great to have a nice juicy posting which gives a flavour of a whole neighbourhood, probably better than single snaps really, all i meant was about the order you posted in not being the order you took the photos, which is entirely up to you, of course, and i often post serial things in an aesthetic order, but being a local i just know that if this was the order your walk took then you would have been doing some really heavy zigzagging

Chris: 5th Mar 2006 - 21:15 GMT

i live in the west midlands which is pretty rural. Most americans that havent been to the uk (dont mean any offence) seem to be influenced way to much by american films that dont do there research, i remember seeing on so many films that london always seems has a mist covering it, it doesnt in real life :) iam guessing that they think it does because back in the industrial revolution there was a lot of factories polluting it.

And it doesnt rain as much as you think here and a lot of summers we have hose pipe bans were we cannot water the garden cause of the lack of rain.

Anyways i love london i go there all the time, its an extremely modern city but also very rich in history, u should check out the london docklands if u wonna c the very modern side.

And the UK does own gibralter as well as so many other places.
We used to own Hong Kong but in 1997 we handed it freely back to the chinese.

jeeff: 6th Mar 2006 - 15:57 GMT

i think that's true about any place that people haven't been. if you've never been to mexico, what do you know about it? how do you get your information? from the media, and if you're not careful you get their bias too. in my travels abroad i found this common in people from all over the globe.

jane : 27th Aug 2006 - 11:06 GMT

Love it looks seedy,dangerous,exciting!
I would love to come have a look will i see Dennis Rickman wandering around? hot stuff!