Me and my kickstarter, selling prints of my hometown, my capital city, my london
I have an ongoing series called “dead in the mincers” (cockney rhyming slang for looking someone straight in the eye – as in ‘mince pies’ -eyes) and this is a perfect example. It looks like I’ve been caught red handed capturing the moment and the menace in her eyes would certainly indicate as much. However sometimes people look straight at me but don’t know for sure if I am taking a shot or not as I literally ‘shoot from the hip’. I use the touchscreen on my Olympus OMD as find it hides my photo taking action much better than pulling the camera up to my face and pressing a button. It also means I never look directly at my subjects and in this instant, if I had, I think I would have been rooted to the spot in fear.
I had just seen this trans person, who was now eyeballing me with a look to kill, attack some woman on Soho square by repeatedly hitting her with a handbag. It was over in a flash and she stormed off with her mate after said battering and just by sheer fluke I ran straight into them being interrogated by the police shortly after. She was actually claiming she had been hit rather than the other way round. I did think about offering up my alternative viewpoint of the event in question but thought better of it as didn’t really want to be on the receiving end of her wrath or her handbag. Did I allow justice to fail to protect myself from violent repercussion – yes, absolutely.
There used to be a lot of characters like this around Soho but they have all but disappeared. Relics of a former era now gone forever. I miss them. They brought a vitality to the area that is now sadly lacking. The question I have to ask is when the area got cleaned up and boutiqued to oblivion where did they all go? Where are they now? Hanging out in the suburbs? Mooching about in Margate? It seems unlikely. I really would like to know. Same goes for all the characterful and colourful residents of Old London who got moved on by excessive rents…where the fuck did you all go?