John Patterson

John sitting in his council estate apartment.  Elephant and Castle, London.
© Kevin T. Vu

This is one of the portraits that i’ve done for my Elephant and Castle project. I’ve worked with four families and john was one of the people that was kind enough to have me in his home. i’m still in the process of finishing everything up which will be turned in on friday.

Margaret

Margaret’s smokes and glasses. Elephant & Castle, London.
© Kevin T. Vu

I just dont understand the weather in London. I mean, its june. isn’t it supposed to be warm? i should be wearing a tshirt w/ boardshorts and sandals.  it was quite warm for a while. and then, it just totally changed. supposedly, there’s some arctic wind that happened to come down or something like that. either way, its freaking cold and making it difficult for me to take pictures. its so easy in this weather to just wanna stay at home, have a cup of tea, put on some coltrane and read. but its getting close to the deadline so i dragged myself down to the ‘armpit’ of london. i went to see chris and his girlfriend natalia in the heygate. they’ve been very nice to me. they always offer me a redstripe everytime i come. and its easy to work with them because they just kind of do they’re thing while i’m doing my thing. they also invited me to a roast lunch on sunday. i’m hoping to get natalie to make some jerk chicken cause she’s jamaican and definitely knows how to jerk a chicken. i also worked w/ margaret today. she’s chris neighbor and she’s been living in the heygate since its inception. she’s irish and a talker. i went into her flat and it was like walking back in time. she had old pictures of her family everywhere. her flat had a lot of character to it and it was very visual. she has a lot of stories and can talk your ear off. it was nice to sit down with her and listen to what she had to say.

Chloe

Chloe looking for a snack in the fridge. Elephant & Castle, London.
© Kevin T. Vu

Well, the weather was still crap today. But i decided to power through anyways and carry the large format camera around. I headed over to Gemma’s and Jon’s place. For those in my course, i would tell u to check out my elephant blog on the university’s server… http://itrdu1.arts.ac.uk/wordpress/kvu2/ i think the picture on there is more interesting. the light wasnt great, but i decided to try it anyways hoping the dynamic range of a 4×5 negative would give me something to work with. sorry for those who dont know the technical jargon. it means pretty much that i was shooting the picture hoping for something to turn out. i was thinking of adding artificial light, but just couldn’t manage to carry everything around. so i decided to leave the lighting kit at marios. i am so grateful for him letting me use his room as a storage space for the 4×5 camera, tripod, and lighting kit. otherwise, i would have to carry that every time all the way up to north london. its hard enough carrying it across the street to the heygate estate. i think i got some decent shots today, fingers crossed. i shot 6 negs. i have 2 more families tomorrow and one of them invited me to sunday roast next sunday. i actually went to get sunday roast today w/ hubert. anyone interested in a cool atmosphere and a decent cheap roast lunch, head over to Tankard’s on walworth road (its right before the mcdonalds). it was recommended to me by chris, one of the guys living in the heygate estate. after all my work today, i went to dinner w/ mario and nuria at the chinese spot across uni. another decent and cheap spot. then we went back to his place for a nice relaxing puff of the hooka. brilliant invention!

Elevator

Heading home from a mate’s place in a tower block. Caledonian Road, London.
© Kevin T. Vu

I’m currently working on my edit for my term photo project. These 2 images are quite similar so I’m posting them to see if i can get some feedback. If you’re reading this, can you let me know which one you like better and why. thanks.

Youths

Youths gathered around a tower block near Caledonian Road. Caledonian Road, London.
© Kevin T. Vu