London Every Day
A Project for The Mayor’s Fund Andrea Hamilton
“There must be room in our world for eccentricity, even if it offends the prudes, and room for the vague other worldliness that often goes with genius.� Mayor Boris Johnson
Introduction London Every Day London Every Day is a celebration of the world’s greatest city, the extraordinary spaces and people that make up its unique character. A photographic exploration undertaken on foot, it is a record of both the familiar and the overlooked, revealing the spectacular to be found in ephemeral moments of daily life. Hamilton’s images trace the year through the changing colours of its seasons and customs. London landmarks, hidden spaces and parks in the heart of the city appear alongside locations easily reached within a day trip: St Paul’s Cathedral, Bold Tendencies art project in a Peckham carpark, festivals in Hyde Park, quiet backstreets and days at Ascot Racecourse, among other sites. There is a shared and recurrent aspect to these snapshots – they are everywhere and nowhere, at once important and insignificant, specific and individual, yet somehow timeless. Andrea Hamilton works in the documentary tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson, alive to the pursuit of the ‘decisive moment’. Walking among us with her camera strapped around her neck, she seizes upon these unstaged, unrepeatable moments as they occur, placing them in her frame as vivid cinematographic tableaux. She references artists ranging from street photographers such us Garry Winogrand or Martin Parr, to the painterly Elina Brotherus or filmmaker Sharon Lockhart. Hamilton captures the mysterious beauty of scenes that have the ability to trigger an often subconscious, universal emotional response. London Every Day aims to present the diversity of daily life in the city anew, a fresh eye on its inner conditions, its quirks and divergences. Publishing this body of work in aid of The Mayor’s Fund for London provides an exceptional opportunity to showcase and celebrate what is so special about this city, captured in images by award-winning artist Andrea Hamilton, while contributing to a vital network that supports young Londoners who will ensure its future as the greatest city on Earth.
“Maybe the ‘trivial’ is just a failed version of the ‘everyday.’ The everyday, or the commonplace, is the most basic and the richest artistic category. Although it seems familiar, it is always surprising and new. But at the same time, there is an openness that permits people to recognize what is there in the picture, because they have already seen something like it somewhere. So the everyday is a space in which meanings accumulate, but it’s the pictorial realization that carries the meanings into the realm of the pleasurable.” – Jeff Wall
January
London, Aerial View, 2014 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
South Kensington, 2009 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.“ – Elliott Erwitt
Hyde Park, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Chelsea, King’s Road, 2013 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Greenwich, 2013 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Stepney, Mile End Road, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“To want to understand is an attempt to recapture something we have lost.” – Peter Høeg
Untitled, 2013 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Hyde Park, 2013 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Deptford, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“The Thames is liquid history.” – John Burns
Chelsea, Enbankment, 2013 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Southwark, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Shoreditch, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Knightsbridge, 2013 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.” – William Butler Yeats
Islington, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Deptford, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Hyde Park, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Deptford, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” – Virginia Woolf
Islington, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“January is here, with eyes that keenly glow, A frost-mailed warrior striding a shadowy steed of snow.” – Edgar Fawcett
Notting Hill, Goldborne Road, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Tooting Bec, Upper Tooting, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Portobello, 2014 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
White City, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Hyde Park, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Notting Hill, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Battersea, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Temple, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“The value of art is in the observer.” – Agnes Martin
Aldgate East, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Islington, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, 2015 North Kensington, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has comfortable income.” – George Bernard Shaw
Hyde Park, 2012 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Notting Hill, Goldborne Road, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Islington, 2015 JANUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
February
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” – William Blake
Hyde Park, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Battersea, 2013 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson
Hyde Park, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Old Street, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Fitzrovia, British Museum, 2014 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“London changes because of money. It’s real estate. If they can build some offices or expensive apartments they will, it’s money that changes everything in a city.” – David Bailey
Knightsbridge, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Fulham, 2014 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Shoreditch, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“Be the first to see what you see as you see it.” – Robert Bresson
South Kensington, Former Consulate of Iraq, 2013 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Fulham, 2014 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“I don’t exist. I’m not even here. I don’t exist. None of this matters.” – Riggan in Birdman The Movie
Westminster, 2014 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“In the theatre of the past that is constituted by memory, the stage setting maintains the characters in their dominant roles. And if we want to go beyond history, or even, while remaining in history, detach from our own history the always too contingent history of the persons who have encumbered it, we realize that the calendars of our lives can only be established in its imagery.” – Gaston Bachelard
South Kensington, Royal College of Music, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Wandsworth, 2012 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Shoreditch, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Bermondsey, 2014 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“The one who observes becomes the one who is observed?” – Hans Ulrich Obrist and Paul Virilio
Brixton, 2004 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Westminster, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Ladbroke Grove, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm – the relationship between shapes and values.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
London, 2011 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Chelsea, 2012 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Clerkenwell, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” – Anaïs Nin
Southwark, Berdmonsey Street, 2014 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Untitled, 2013 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Hackney, Andrews Road, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“We borrow from nature the space upon which we build.” – Tadao Ando
Southwark, 2014 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Southwark, 2014 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Battersea, 2015 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
“A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own.” – Michelangelo Antonioni
Westminster, 2012 FEBRUARY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
March
“Everything is about to disappear. You’ve got to hurry up if you still want to see things.” – Paul Cezanne
Bethnal Green, Columbia Road, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Battersea, 2013 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Camden Town, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Battersea, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“An old silent pond... A frog jumps into the pond, splash! Silence again.” – Basho Matsuo
Hyde Park, The Serpentine, 2013 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Southwark, Borough Market, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Belgravia, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.” – John Donne
South Kensington, Brompton Oratory, 2014 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Knightsbridge, Brompton Road, 2011 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Barnes Elms, 2010 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Battersea, 2012 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“When things move, I get interested.” – Garry Winogrand
Knightsbridge, 2013 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Kensington, The Serpentine, 2013 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Hackney, London Fields, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“Photographic images absorb the whole of history and form a collective memory going endlessly round in circle.” – Vilém Flusser
Knightsbridge, 2011 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“Art is a matter of picking up on the mundane and giving it form at a higher level of expression.” – Edmund Teske
Lambeth, Kennington Lane, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Hyde Park, The Serpentine, 2013 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” – Coco Chanel
Mayfair, Bond Street, 2013 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“It’s nice, when taking pictures in the street, not to have to participate in any way in the stream of life passing you by. It makes me fell special to be there but not to be chatting, not to be shopping or not even to be heading for somewhere else. I feel like I am invisible to the passing crowds. This in turn leads to a loss of my sense of self, which is the finest feeling of all.” – Nick Turpin
Knightsbridge, 2011 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Marylebone, Wallace Collection, 2013 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Knightsbridge, 2011 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Shoreditch, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time.” – John Berger
Knightsbridge, 2011 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Battersea, 2014 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
South Kensington, 2013 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Notting Hill, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Southwark, Borough Market, 2012 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Notting Hill, 2014 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Whitehall, Horse Guards, 2014 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Clapham, 2013 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Knightsbridge, 2015 MARCH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
April
Holland Park, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“The majority of photographic stories require a certain amount of setting up, rearranging and stage direction, to bring pictorial and editorial coherency to the picture.” – W. Eugene Smith
Knightsbridge, Victoria & Albert Museum, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Hyde Park, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.” – William Wordsworth
Hyde Park, 2015 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Dalston, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Knightsbridge, Natural History Museum, 2013 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
South Kensington, 2013 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.” – Diane Arbus
Peckham, 2012 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Peckham, 2012 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.” – Julia Margaret Cameron
Green Park, 2015 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“Weightless in water, swift as the wind, Subtle of purpose - a feather blown I go with my oarsmen where they will, My beautiful body and theirs all one.” – Mark Van Doren
Hammersmith, 2015 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Knightsbridge, Natural History Museum, 2013 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting.” – Warhol
Peckham, 2012 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Hackney, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Peckham, 2012 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Knightsbridge, Cromwell Road, 2013 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Crayford, Europe Gym, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
South Kensington, 2013 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Battersea Park, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Battersea Bridge, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“I’m not crazy about the term ‘street photography’ to describe what I do, because it’s not necessarily done on the street. The pictures can be taken on a farm, at the zoo, in an office, and so on. Let’s say we consider the general category of ‘unposed pictures of people’ (or sometimes animals or even inanimate objects when they happen to be possessed by human souls), That’s what I like to do: play with ordinary reality, using unposed actors who are oblivious to the dramas I’ve placed them in.” – Richard Kalvar
Knightsbridge, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment. This kind of photography is realism. But realism is not enough there has to be vision, and the two together can make a good photograph.” – Robert Frank
Holland Park, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Southwark, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“There are many realities.” – Louise Bourgeois
Vauxhall, 2015 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Brixton, 2012 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Peckham, 2012 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Knightsbridge, Natural History Museum, 2013 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Wells, Lynn AC Boxing Club, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“The spontaneous is the most beautiful thing that can appear in a picture, but nothing in art appears less spontaneously than that.” – Jeff Wall
Hyde Park, Prince Williams and Kate Middleton’s Royal Wedding, 2011 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Battersea, 2014 APRIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
May
Hackney, Broadway Market, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, 2015 Peckham, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Hackney, Broadway Market, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“It takes a very long time to become young.” – Pablo Picasso
Bethnal Green, Columbia Road Flower Market, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“We know photographers make frames, but we deeply believe they can also create frameworks.” – Susan Meiselas
Hyde Park, 2015 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“I love Trafalgar Square, it has really gorgeous architecture and because of its different levels and the fountains it’s a joyful urban space.” – Katharina Fritsch
Trafalgar Square, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Rotherhithe, Sands Film Studios 2015 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Knightsbridge, Brompton Road, 2013 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.” – Walker Evans
Southwark, Cross Bones Graveyard, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Stratford, London Aquatics Center, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Bethnal Green, Columbia Road Flower Market, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Mayfair, Bond Street, 2013 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Battersea, 2011 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Knightsbridge, 2013 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Vauxhall, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“Art is, for me, the process of trying to wake up the soul. Because we live in an industrialized, fast-paced world that prefers that the soul remain asleep.” – Bill Viola
City of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Piccadilly, 2013 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Hyde Park, The Serpentine, 2012 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Wandsworth, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind.” – Virginia Woolf
Chelsea, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
City of London, St. Paul’s Churchyard, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” – Edgar Allan Poe
Hyde Park, 2015 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“I accept that all photography is voyeuristic and exploitative, and obviously I live with my own guilt and conscience. It’s part of the test and I don’t have a problem with it.” – Martin Parr
Wandsworth, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Temple, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Bethnal Green, Columbia Road Flower Market, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Bermondsey, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
“There’s a tantalizing, asymptotic convergence between reality and a photograph, but the two never seem to get together. A picture looks like reality but it is completely abstracted from it: it’s frozen in time, flat, silent, and ignorant of everything outside the frame.” – Richard Kalvar
City of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Walworth, 2015 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Bankside, Tate Modern, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Walworth, Burgess Park, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Embankment, 2014 MAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
June
Millbank, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Mayfair, Doggy Dinner at George Restaurant, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Tower of London, 2011 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.” – Agnes Martin
Islington, Central Saint Martin’s Degree Show, 2015 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Shoreditch, 2015 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Westminster, Oxford Street, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
St. James’s Park, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.” – Plato
Westminster, Trooping the Colour: The Queen’s Birthday Parade, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Peckham, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“I never had a ‘project.’ I would go out and shoot, follow my eyes – what they noticed, I tried to capture with my camera, for others to see.” – Helen Levitt
Mayfair, Grosvenor House Hotel, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Tower Hamlets, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
St. James’s Park, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Peckham, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“Pussy cat, Pussy Cat...” – Nursery Rymhes
Kensington, Portobello Market, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Windsor, The Cartier’s Queen Cup, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Windsor, The Cartier’s Queen Cup, 2009 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Knightsbridge, 2015 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“To me, the magic of photography, per se, is that you can capture an instant of a second that couldn’t exist before and couldn’t exist after. It’s almost like a cowboy that draws his gun. You draw a second before or after, you miss and you’re dead - not them. To me, photography’s always like that.” – Mario Testino
Ascot, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Peckham, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” – Susan Sontag
Peckham, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Bethnal Green, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Fitzrovia, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.” – Samuel Johnson
Windsor, The Cartier’s Queen Cup, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Greenwich, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“Space is something that you have to define. Otherwise, it is like anxiety, which is too vague. A fear is something specific. I like claustrophobic spaces, because at least then you know your limits.” – Louise Bourgeois
Millbank, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Chelsea, Masterpiece, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Hyde Park, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Battersea Park, 2005 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Tower Hamlets, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
“I’m leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when is not raining.” – Groucho Marx
Wimbledon, 2014 JUNE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Everything and Everywhere Andrea Hamilton London Every Day is really a love letter to photography. Street photography is for me the most pure form of traditional photography: it all reduces down to the human spirit or the confrontation of a particular moment in time. The images in this book have been captured by luck – because I never leave home without a half-decent camera. It is not about a particular shot or set-up, but rather the prospect of witnessing something special and spontaneous. I watch scenes unfold in front of me, some quite hard to believe. Other times, I catch just glimpses of things that fascinate me. I lost my mother to cancer six years ago and remember her telling me poignantly what really matters: it is not the material things at all, but simply being able to walk and feel the sunlight on your forehead or smell the blossoms, to look. Today we use the word mindfulness a lot, to mean just being happy to be alive. Extraordinary pictures don’t often happen by chance. (In my opinion this is why so many of the most incredible images today are staged.) When that fantastic moment occurs, is the light in the right place? Is the camera at the right angle? Rarely. At the start of this project, when the Mayor’s Fund for London asked me to find an image for every day of the year, charting the changing seasons in the city, my first thought was that this might provide a unique approach to digging through my photographic archive. In fact, London Every Day owes a debt to the wonderful book London Burning (published by Transglobe Publishing and distributed by Thames & Hudson), for which I was privileged to shoot the everyday lives of the top creative talents in London, as part of a stellar team of photographers and editors. That project diverted my daily walks, my drift – or dérive, to coin a phrase from the Situationist practices of the ‘50s – taking me into the furthest reaches of London, and I walked new and exciting streets each week as well as travelling to my usual destinations. This book presents the results of happy hours looking through my work and of my instinctive response to new moments. In a world where everyone is a photographer, via his or her smartphone, I believe we all share one indelible challenge: to capture the magic in front of us. It can be a surreal moment, an exquisite light, or a flash of movement, but certain images have a quality that takes us to the heart of human experience – a universal transcendence that makes photography, and the art of representation in general, so appealing. For poets who cannot write or singers without a voice, photography is a medium that has been embraced the world over for decades, since the invention of the first portable camera in the 1890s. The story of London Every Day is about my London moments, but it is also about everyone’s. I welcome shared thoughts and experiences. For this reason, in parallel with this photobook a digital platform will be launched that enables you to participate in this adventure, which is that of living in London every day.
As Seen On the Street Nico Kos Earle In many ways, photography has never been more relevant, more historically significant or more existentially compelling. For most of us, looking has devolved into filtering the overspill of images collected on the screens we carry everywhere with us, whilst the real-world street view passes us by. Street photographers still committed to looking out at the bigger picture, and seeing into the moment, give us a chance through their work to appreciate what we have been missing. Often following their intuition in pursuit of an image that captures something essential about today’s human condition, or simply for the joy of ‘chasing colour’, photographers like Andrea Hamilton offer us the opportunity to step into that moment with them, and be reminded of the spontaneous magic in the everyday. Multiple award-winning artist Andrea Hamilton was chosen in 2015 as a finalist for the 9th Edition of Art Prize Laguna. One of the artworks selected by the jury came from a series of scenes at Ascot Racecourse that form part of a more ambitious project she has been developing over the last few years ‘under the shared concept of the spectacularity I saw in daily life. My main intention…was to create a series of pictures that feel like a lucid dreaming, impressions that evoke cultural peculiarities but also inspire a connected feeling.’ The fresh and compelling body of work presented in London Every Day, a snapshot of this wider ongoing project, showcases Hamilton’s instinctive awareness of colour, light and composition combined with a probing insight into her adopted city. Her reflex to shoot when the ordinary momentarily manifests as the magnificent and strange makes her one of the most exciting photographers in London today. Only one of the many genres of photography in which Hamilton excels – from portraiture to fine art – street photography has an immediate and honest impact, both for photographer and viewer, that is beguiling. Somehow, Hamilton manages to capture within the image the surprise or wonder she experiences whilst seeing and taking the shot – and on first sight, it grabs your attention. You feel it too. London Every Day draws you into familiar London streets, connecting you to the moment and to the place that so many of us call home. Where once the streets of Paris and New York dominated the genre, London is having its moment now, prompted by its sprawling development, diverse multiculturalism, iconic new landmarks, thriving business community, artistic vitality and the spectacular array of cultural juxtapositions that form the fabric of daily city life. Street photography as a genre can be understood as the product of ‘an artistic interaction between a photographer and an urban public space’. It is distinguished from documentary photography and photojournalism by an essential difference in perspective: it is subjective not objective.
Street photographers’ impressions and feelings towards a subject – what they notice and why – are key. They are motivated not to illustrate a premeditated narrative, but to go out in search of something. According to Lisa Hostetler, writing in the catalogue to the 2010 exhibition Street Seen, ‘their primary goal is expressive and communicates a subjective impression of the experience of everyday life in the city.’ Street photographers succeed when you want to follow – because they communicate through their images something that we had failed to notice around us. Some move almost invisible through a crowd and others break down the silent barriers to communication with strangers, establishing instant bonds in the making of an image. Andrea Hamilton navigates the length and breadth of London’s streets with the ease of someone who knows how to walk amongst peasants and kings: I continually seek new methods to represent life pictorially and the inner conditions and disturbances of normality. ‘The camera is an extension of my body,’ said Magnum photographer David Hurn. However, it attempts inevitably to weave elements of storytelling with efforts at faithful testimony. Though the word ‘street’ suggests that the urban environment is a prerequisite backdrop, the genre is more about immersion and spontaneity, or what Henri Cartier-Bresson called the ‘decisive moment’: when form and content, vision and composition merge into a transcendent whole. Thus neither place not subject-matter defines this type of photography; rather, it is the photographer’s approach to the medium and how he or she chooses to move through public spaces – looking but also ready for something to coalesce in front of the lens – that lies at its heart. The photographer hopes, in brief, to discover a tension so exact that it is in harmony. It is like a landscape into which all fragments, no matter how imperfect, fit perfectly. – Andrea Hamilton