View's We'll Lose

It’s the end of the year and I find myself thinking about plans for next year and reflecting on images from earlier in my career. This was one of my favourite ever commissions for Wordsearch Group in London. The idea was to shoot empty spaces across the capital that revealed a view that would only appear fleetingly before a new building went up. In this case, the new building was One New Change by @ateliersjeannouvel . It was important to get the right building to shoot from and the best timing to ensure the worksite was lit up (darkness falls early in London in the winter months). The series ended up as an exhibition at the KPF London offices coupled with aerial shots of each location by Jason Hawkes . The BBC picked up the story and ran it across their website for a few days (garnering more hits than I could believe). As a result of the publicity, someone got in touch saying they had a painting their father had made from 1944 of exactly the same view (the last time that view had been visible) when all the surrounding buildings had been blown up in WW2. On the roof of St. Paul’s were gun emplacements. It gave me an unending appreciation of photography’s ability to record an indexical link to the world. Whatever I shoot for my clients I always have something in the back of my mind reminding me that this is a shot for publicity but also posterity.