London's shop fronts
As more and more of us take and share pictures of our lives and surroundings, it can become overwhelming to anyone trying to locate bodies of work that hang together, both in terms of style and content.
Many of us will only photograph a small patch - our home turf, if you like - but add all of these together and you have a comprehensive record of the start of the 21st Century, a mass observation of the modern age.
One documentary project I've been following for a while is the work of Emily Webber, who is photographing shop fronts of independent traders in London.
The pictures are fairly simple, straight-on records of supermarkets, corner shops, discount outlets and even a massage parlour. They are unique shop fronts that are slowly disappearing.
Emily says: "It started with an interest in documenting the bits of London that I know, and more recently lead me to spreading further afield, although I still have a lot to cover."
Like many of us, Emily has to fit this project in around her work and now that she's covered her home patch and the area near her work, she spends time at weekends exploring new parts of London.
She says: "The shop fronts are a great indicator of an area, they tell the history, the prosperity and the ethnicity of a neighbourhood... these shop fronts reflect exactly what makes London so interesting."
The pictures are, for the most part, devoid of figures and yet full of the signs of city life: looking at them as a set, there is something about them that draws me in. I want to see more, even if it's just to prove that there are still shops out there beyond the usual suspects and coffee bars that seem to dominate every high street.
As Emily notes: "I am driven by wanting to capture as much of the London of the early 2000s before it disappears. I see the shops being revamped or closing regularly, sometimes before I manage to capture them."
Here you can see shops offering a mind-boggling array of goods and services, others with an inviting light drawing you in.
Individually, the pictures would be of interest, but no more than that; as a set, they are building up a valuable collection and I hope that Emily continues her quest to preserve these sights for future generations. It also shows that you don't have to travel to the other side of the planet to find a subject worthy of investigation.
You can keep up to date with Emily Webber's project on her website: www.londonshopfronts.tumblr.com.
I'd be keen to hear from anyone else who is working on photographic projects documenting their area: please use the comment box below.
UPDATE, 17:20: A few of you have been in touch and suggested a number of other projects on a similar theme:
Richard Gallon had a number of thoughts including this fascinating idea of sending photographers to a set location each week.
Another in the same style as Emily is in LA, where they do at least have more sun.
Ross has pointed me towards Geograph British Isles, which is an ambitious project to collect a representative photograph of every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland. They are doing well with more than 1.3 million pictures so far!
Lasltly Sarah Thompson points out that photographer Nick Dawe has stepped inside the shops to photograph a number of shopkeepers.
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I think those pictures of the shops fronts are good - They catch the eye and stop that bland look !
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Interesting, although Emily's work has been more or less completely mechanized and automated by Google Street View's camera cars... for better or worse.
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The Google Streetview project, though, is just mechanistic. It can't get the best angle, set the shop in context, take account of the light, or photograph detail.
I've been doing this sort of photography for years and have a lot of good material - though most of the really good stuff dates from the 1970s and 1980s and so I need to spend some quality time with my scanner! (About six months' worth of quality time...) However, how easy it would be these days to carry on this sort of photography I don't know. People with cameras aren't all that popular on the streets through being thought to be paedophiles, terrorists or invaders of someone else's non-existent privacy. Oh, and some businesses get all sniffy over their shop fronts as their 'intellectual property' (though that tends to be more in shopping malls).
Since 1994, I've taken the opportunity of a number of visits to Austria to start taking photographs of shop fronts there. Very many Austrian shop fronts were refurbished during the post-war reconstruction and haven't been updated since, so a typical Viennese back street is something of a 1950s time capsule, with typography and shop fittings typical of the time, and even surviving neon signs! When did you last see many of those in the UK?
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Different look at london shop fronts is here: london-shops.net
This is London made of shop fronts from areas avoided by tourists :-)
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RobertDay154 - sounds like you have a great collection there, I would love to see it. Let me know if you get it online at some point.
I tend to find that as long as you look like you should be there taking photos then it's fine, I haven't come across any problems....yet!
a1bercik - I have seen your blog before, looks like we have a similar passion for the same areas of London!
Emily
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RobertDay154
re: "People with cameras aren't all that popular on the streets through being thought to be paedophiles, terrorists or invaders..."
I think that's quite true, however, it sometimes happens that we get an e-mail which reads: "hey good job. saw my shop on your website and it's just been refurbished! so why don't you come again and take a shot..." which makes it all worthwhile...
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I agree that the shopfront pics are a great way to see another view of places we normally consider part of a common day, and they are well done.
I hope my current project of historic bldgs in Tyne & Wear will be seen with a new perspective. Wish me luck!
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I started with the idea of documenting some of the fascinating architectural features on the upper levels of the old buildings in Glasgow that no-one ever sees by virtue of never looking over their heads! There is some amazing stuff up there. Unfortunately, my motivation petered out a while back, but hopefully I'll get round to gathering a few more at some point!
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I live in Peckham, and recognise many of these shopfronts! Emily's work is wonderful.
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