Comments on: This Was My Landscape https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/ In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London Tue, 24 May 2016 21:14:43 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: mike ferrier https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-64092 Sat, 15 Sep 2012 13:12:35 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-64092 great pic john of along the track which you took from peggy legy steps which was a shot of the old mans breakers yard manor rd e16 good times

]]> By: Brian Walker https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-59839 Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:12:29 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-59839 ghosts of the past coming to life again,what a moving experience,apart from these words,words fail me.

]]> By: Cindy S. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-50445 Wed, 30 May 2012 06:49:38 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-50445 Like a box of handmade luxury chocolates, we love them all and yet secretly have our favourites.
Thank you John- Yum Yum!

]]> By: Jan Davis https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-50347 Tue, 29 May 2012 17:02:49 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-50347 I can only imagine what went on in the darkroom John! so wonderful to see yet another stunning portfolio of your times and I have to say my favourite is the blossom, but for very personal reasons.

They are truely beautiful,and it is such a pleasure to see them,but I still want to see them in a
book – so important! please someone take note.

]]> By: john edwards https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-50344 Tue, 29 May 2012 16:06:08 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-50344 Ah! JC – The man who fell to earth. Then raised the dead to salvation by elegy of minds eye. The cooling towers always have me seeing a coffee morning for industrial giants, who, alarmed, vanished as the shutter clicked, leaving their stoneware mugs faintly steaming. The lone horse looking fit and elegant, part Percheron by the great curved strong neck and lively head. Monday to be clicked and flicked by a Steptoe skellington along the percussive stone blind windowed {‘fetid’ [Angela Burdett Coutts ] } dwellings, with a doleful ‘ ayee ‘ol ra-bonenah ‘. Very nice looking Humber Snipe or Talbot in one shot lined up against the gasworks wall.
The creek at dawn has Ansell Adams clarity of element and contrasts. Sums up the the beauty that rack and ruin can reveal to us that see, as strong an essence of antic-romantic you could wish for.
The favoured black horizontals in most shots here are transposed from the insults they really were to a balletic flow by the composer of the frame.
Once again the question rises – An alien lands and asks around; is told ‘ Yes. This is what we have achieved! Not half bad eh?’ The alien decides to keep looking through the galactic list of places to settle and with a polite smile, journeys on.
Denis Bailey was far sighted and and quietly led a lot of us to know we weren’t frantic exotics [ to quote an ex-warder who patted me down on the stairs at the Old Bailey] mad.
What JC and some of us were recording then was clear evidence that near all about us were – stark
raving. What I love is the peace and content of these shots, which are fundamental to the man himself – Soothes my boiler-house rage. Thank you John.

]]> By: David Drakes https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-50338 Tue, 29 May 2012 15:02:07 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-50338 From the dark satanic mills of the Lancastrian north to the dusky, musty shattered edifice of London Docklands’ East End . . . they all evoke memories for my generation of the gradual resurrection from the hell of war and dereliction . . . John’s Spitalfield images capture all of this yet with a commentary of warmth and affection which leaves us believing that he really loved this “his landscape”.

]]> By: Michael https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-50226 Tue, 29 May 2012 01:39:15 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-50226 These are all wonderful. Scrapyard, Small Creek and Spillers speak to me.

]]> By: jeannette https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-50186 Mon, 28 May 2012 20:20:53 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-50186 riding the bomb craters, yeah!
reminds me of so much.
opening credits of The Sopranos (urban New Jersey):
http://youtu.be/RiDoBYu-S04
all the wonderful street games NYC children play.
http://www.streetplay.com/skully/
and, finally, doris lessing’s great walking odyssey as martha quest through these parts of london in The Four-Gated City. awesome, awesome, awesome. (type “bomb crater” into the search slot in the left hand column.)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Gated-City-Children-Violence/dp/0060976675#reader_0060976675

]]> By: dennis https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-50180 Mon, 28 May 2012 19:47:43 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-50180 Brilliant work John, how such empty pictures can evoke life as it was then. I agree with Chris F these could be pictures of my childhood in Hull especially playing in the craters on what we as kids new as “Bombed buildings” – didn’t make for much of a cricket pitch though. Thank goodness you had the eye and inspiration to do it.

]]> By: AnKa https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/28/this-was-my-landscape/#comment-50179 Mon, 28 May 2012 19:38:50 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=63300#comment-50179 I came to the East End last year (E13) and am experiencing the changes araound the games and also some traces of the past (along the canals and around Spitalfields). The only feature I recognise is the chimney of the Truman Brewery. Thank you for showing me this very different East End. And great photos, is there an exhibition planned? 🙂

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