Memory Lane

On our recent visit to London, blip-friend Shamie took us to the Brick Lane and Spitalfields areas to the east of the City. I had a quick chat with him about how the area reminded me of my time in Notting Hill and Westbourne Grove areas at the end of my penultimate year at art college nearly 47 years ago. 

In 1968 the streets and garden squares had just been opened up by direct action after the end of the infamous Rackman era. I volunteered for the play scheme and had many of my comfortable middle class ideas profoundly shaken by some very real kids living with very real problems in poor conditions. I had a difficult time but found a way to relate to them in some way with my camera.
For my final show at the end of the following year I included a small book of the photos I took on the play scheme and this is a pair of pages from that book. At the time, I had a belief that the whole image, as it had been framed in the camera, should be used, so I filed out the negative carrier of an enlarger to create the black line around each image.
Film was probably Tri-X, and high contrast was very 'in' at that time. Camera was a Pentax K1000 with a 28-50 Sigma lens.
Shamie asked if I thought the images were any good - I did and I still do.