A quick post: way back when I was a photography student I used to go up from Bournemouth to London as often as I could, visiting galleries and taking bleak black and white photographs of the city. I still go as often as I can and I can still find bleak even though so much has been tidied up.
This space, beneath a railway bridge between Waterloo and the Southbank, used to be populated by homeless people. They lined this wall with cardboard shelters and begged change or slept as you passed through. I used to give change to one or two as even as a student deep in debt I had more to spare than they did - at least I had access to the debt I'm still in!
Now this tidied space is populated by commuters and tourists and the graffitied, smog-dirtied walls have been lined with wipe-clean photgraphic version of what is underneath, complete with a couple of small, polite pieces of graffiti. The paper cups that used to be held out for change are now held by people passing through and are filled with cappucino, mocha and latte. It is so much nicer, so much cleaner and less threatening, but as I think this I know that the problem of people without homes hasn't gone away, it's just been tidied up. I wonder where those people who used to sleep in cardboard homes have been tidied to?
Interestingly, since photographing this in 2008 the wall has been tidied further - these concrete blocks are now coated in wipe-clean paint.
The bridge is here. And it was just as I put my camera back in its bag that the man in the gorilla suit walked past. His friend was holding his cappucino for him...
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