Category: abandoned

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MYLDN 1860

I can’t relax because I don’t know what expection is..even if it’s good.

All photographs taken this week of abandoned objects were within a 100 yards or so of my flat. I am currently in a rehab program for people with long covid/cfs and they talk about how important it is to stay within your ‘3ft world’. This is to encourage you to just focus on the step in front you. Don’t look too far forward, don’t look too far back, don’t look at what other people are doing, just concentrate on where you’re at in the present moment and what you can do now. I have found this very helpful. It keeps me on the task at hand. It stops me comparing myself to others, or indeed to my former self. And it generates a level of acceptance crucial for coping with a reduced existence. Although I do believe everyone could benefit from staying in their 3 foot world. It annihilates the regret of the past and evaporates the anxiety surrounding the future.

I used to take photographs all over London. I could visit multiple postcodes in a single day but currently I am confined to the block that I live on. But rather than lament what is not, I now focus on what is. I look for beauty and wonder within my 3 foot world. Or rather my 300 foot world which is my currently doable walking distance.

So even though my terrain is small I get very excited when I find something I want to photograph. It might not seem worth photographing to most people but it has ignited a flame in my imagination and that is all I need to work..

I have fortunately always been fixated with abandoned objects and there are always plenty of those on offer on my local streets…I just always think that this is not what their creator intended for them. I think of all the meetings that would’ve happened to discuss their style and structure, presentation and promotion, never imagining the one day it would just become discarded rubbish. Ultimately that is obviously how all things end, even the very greatest of things but scattered as litter on the street was not meant to be where they were viewed, or rather ignored. No-one pays them any attention. except for me. I see their former beauty. I see their former glory. By Photographing them I give them a modicum of meaning at the very moment when they have none. I’m just nice like that…

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MYLDN 1858

On top of the world..

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MYLDN 1857

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#MYLDN (1610)

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I love that whoever made this list only managed to complete one task (and the easiest one by looks of things) before either throwing it away or losing it. It kind of sums up for me how we all feel we should be productive during this ongoing period of inactivity but are having varying degrees of success. Some folk are actually getting things done whilst others are permanently hovering around the contemplation stage. I am partly in the former group but frequently in the latter. Eg: I have finally painted the bedroom wardrobe (I bought the paint just under a year ago) but my summer shirts are still in the dirty laundry, yes I know, its February. Don’t judge. I figure I still got a few months till I need ’em again.

As I walk around at the mo it is very clear that people are clearly clearing out a ton of shit (can you have too many ‘clears’ in one statement? Clearly you can) While actual humans are very thin on the ground, their discarded objects are making a consistent appearance on the streets. These items have lingered in the shadows for years, niggling at us from the periphery of our consciousness to be thrown out but now lockdown has shone an unbearable light on them and they have now finally been cast asunder. (note to self: use the word asunder more) In fact, these pavement dwelling objects are about the only thing you come across as you take a break from your own steaming pile of shitty tasks.

Over the years we have all convinced ourselves that if we just had a bit more time we would finally get around to doing all those things that permanently lurk on the edge of getting done. But even after almost a year some are still very much ‘undone’. Turns out that time wasn’t the problem, it was desire. Turns out that even in the midst of the most prolonged period of inactivity in living history there are things that you simply cannot ever be arsed to do….do not see this as failure, see this as liberation. You now no longer have to concern yourself with these things ever again.

Our previous lives were chock to the brim with ‘doing things’. Let’s be honest. It was exhausting. You lunged from one thing to the next with no break, no reprieve. The in-tray was never empty. Life never stopped..or it didn’t…until now. So now that it has, why are we so desperate to fill it in the same relentless way? Why don’t we just enjoy the nothingness? Embrace the quiet? I think it’s because when everything goes still we are left with ourselves who, it turns out, are possibly the last people on Earth we want to be alone with…but what are we so afraid of? How bad can we actually be? And all we have to do to find out is to do sweet F.A. That feels very doable to me.

I think I touched on this in the last lockdown but I actually think doing nothing is very underrated in our society. I am actually now developing a book/podcast/cult called “Stop doing, start living”. I am currently at the research stage which involves doing nothing for long periods of time. It’s arduous work but very rewarding and I hope all the effort I put in now will hopefully one day lead to people putting in no effort at all…and that doesn’t just have to be my dream, that is something we can all not work towards…

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#MYLDN (1548)

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#MYLDN (1547)

All I want to know is what’s in the towel? I guess I could have looked inside but going thru other people’s discarded stuff on the street just doesn’t seem like such a sensible idea at the moment..and anyway, an unsolved mystery is always way more exciting than a solved fact. And as excitement is very much on the lowdown at the mo I will take it where I can get it…

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#MYLDN (1546)

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#MYLDN (1499)

I went through a phase (circa 2007) of taking pictures of abandoned objects on the streets. Mostly household furniture (beds/chairs/sofas) but also TVs, computers and even Xmas trees. (galleries here, here and here if you want to see). I was slightly fixated with these things that had once taken pride of place in people’s homes and were now discarded, thrown into the street, never to be cared for again. They looked like they’d been abandoned and when I came across them they spoke to me. They looked sad, forlorn, rejected.

I worked out much much later it was to do with me trying to process my own grief for my father who had just passed away. I guess I was struggling with the fact that he was gone and the world had just moved on. Time stops for no man as the saying goes. And so it also seemed for these abandoned, once cherished, items. In capturing their final moments before they went to landfill, never to be seen again, I was creating photographic evidence of their existence, just as I had wanted the memory of my dad to be preserved.

This photographic ‘phase’ lasted a couple of years and then it just passed and I haven’t really taken any shots of abandoned items since, well until very recently, when I just started ‘seeing’ them again and the compulsion returned. I am not currently grieving anybody but I am curious as to why they are back on my radar. The only thing I can think of is I am grieving the world that was. We are in a new world now and there are remnants of the previous one lurking around but we most definitely inhabit a different sphere of existence.

With regard to the shot above it is quite unique in the sense that the abandoned object i stumbled upon, flanked by two bollard bouncers, was in fact me. I had myself been discarded, thrown onto the street and left to perish in the elements. Who threw me out? I will never know. But like every shot I have ever taken, I captured it as I discovered it and left it as I found it.

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#MYLDN (1498)

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This shot above (taken the other day) reminds of the shot below which I took way back on October 23rd 2007. It is a very important photograph for me because it was taken on the first day that I took my camera out with me for no particular reason. Previously I had only taken it on holidays or when I was going to something specific like a gig or whatever.

Having my camera on me that day changed my life because I was so friggin chuffed to be able to capture what looked to me like the remnants of a teddy bear massacre, its guts ripped out by an unknown assailant. It felt like a message from above to document what I came across in my normal day to day. And so from that lightening bolt moment I vowed never to leave my house without my camera ever again and I haven’t. (well except for August which I take off as you know).

Being armed and ready at all times has meant I have been able to capture an endless multitude of random moments that would have otherwise have got lost in the annals of time (not a rude word btw). Is that a good thing? It’s hard to say. Why am I telling you all this? Umm, I’m not sure really. I guess I just wanted to share that little nugget of info with you..as you were.

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#MYLDN (1496)

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#MYLDN (278)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

This photograph is also part of the gallery “Four Legs Good” and part of the Abandoned series. Please click here to view.

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#MYLDN (246)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

This is also part of a new gallery entitled “Bed Ridden” and is part of my Abandoned series. Click here to view

I have been taking pictures of abandoned objects discarded on the streets of London for about five years. I have amassed in the region of around 1000 photographs of which I am now stripping down into galleries. This is the second in the series. (to see the first please click here)

I don’t quite remember how or why it started but I found myself relentlessly drawn to documenting these now homeless household items.  I became fixated with their rejected status, cast out into the elements, ejected from their families, once loved and in pride of place, now discarded and forlorn.

It occurred to me that my photographs would also become the last documentation of their existence before they were removed from sight and society, sent either to languish an eternity on a landfill or simply destroyed.  These pictures are dedicated to all you broken (hearted) pieces of unwanted junk.  I salute you and wish you well on your journey to your new home in the sky.

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#MYLDN (178)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london…

This is also part of the gallery “The Death of Television”. Click here to view.

I have been taking pictures of abandoned objects discarded on the streets of London for about five years. I have amassed in the region of around 1000 photographs of which I am now stripping down into galleries. This is the first of the series. 

I don’t quite remember how or why it started but I found myself relentlessly drawn to documenting these now homeless household items.  I became fixated with their rejected status, cast out into the elements, ejected from their families, once loved and in pride of place, now discarded and forlorn.

It occurred to me that my photographs would also become the last documentation of their existence before they were removed from sight and society, sent either to languish an eternity on a landfill or simply destroyed.  These pictures are dedicated to all you broken (hearted) pieces of unwanted junk.  I salute you and wish you well on your journey to the great living-room in the sky.