Royal Oak (Walking the Westway)

‘Walking the Westway’ is a photographic documentary project mapping the journey of the elevated section of the famous red-route linking West London to Central and North London. The social contrast between wealth and poverty either side and beneath the road could not be in more close proximity. 

For many years of driving through London along the Westway I have been fascinated by the views either side. In the car the high concrete barriers obscure the landscape and view. This made me only wonder as to what is missed by only seeing a small amount that is high enough to be visible from the elevated road. Whilst the roads were quiet enough during the periods where London was in lockdown and starting at the unfashionable and peaceful time of 3am on Sunday mornings, I took it upon myself to start wandering along the road with my camera. 

Above the Westway and with the cityscapes uncovered, opened up to reveal the bare and uncompromising infrastructure of many aspects of London otherwise hidden at street level. High-rise developments towering over dangerous looking junkyards, train lines and rail network buildings, roof top bus stations, cement works, storage yards and what seems like acre upon acre of unfinished redevelopments and building work.

Beneath the Westway, with the rumble of traffic above, you see grimy corners used as dumping grounds, memorials and protest graffiti, caravans and the unfortunate souls living on the streets in plain view.

The project aims to bring together the life and existence of this proximity beneath the constant reminder and the shadow of the Grenfell Tower disaster that seems to loom into view at every site. 

Working while walking precariously along the red-route, I am making the long exposure photographs on Medium Format Mamiya camera and on colour film in a very traditional sense. Ultimately I wanted to create an old fashioned, but in-depth, documentary project without the need for perfection that you tend to fixate upon in digital commercial photography. Given some of the dangerous situations I have been confronted with, while making the project, the old film camera tends to be a talking point and diffuse a situation rather than looking like a target with a bag of very expensive camera gear.