London photos

Marking 3,000 days since I first set out on my bike on a daily basis to take photos of the changing face of the capital for a project that became known as ‘The State of London.’ On the fifth anniversary of the start of the project, I began posting a photo a day on Facebook, where I have now posted 1,176 photos.

An article marking 120 unbroken days in which I’ve been taking photos on daily bike rides throughout the coronavirus lockdown in London, and posting them as part of my ongoing photo-journalism project ‘The State of London.’ This article features my reflections on this extraordinary time, as well as some previously unpublished photos. Enjoy!

Every three months, I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support my work on Guantánamo, which I have been working to try and get closed for 14 years now, and my ongoing photo-journalism project, “The State of London’, which has been attracting significant attention lately, via the photos I have been taking during the coronavirus lockdown. As an independent freelance journalist and activist, I rely on your support to enable me to continue my work, so if you can help out at all, please do. It will be very greatly appreciated!

I look at the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the construction industry in London, enthusing about the shutdown of sites, and hoping that the entire bloated industry will collapse – not only because its developments are either unnecessary or overpriced, or both, but also because the entire industry is so environmentally ruinous. My critique is also part of a wider analysis of the huge drop in emissions since the lockdown began, in which massively reduced car use has played a major part, although this progress will be rapidly undone without a renewed commitment to a permanent reduction in emissions as countries begin to try to ease their way out of lockdown.

Today I’m marking the eighth anniversary of when I set out on my bike, with my camera, to take photos in all of London’s 120 postcodes. Eight years later, I haven’t stopped, and, in the last seven weeks, I’ve been seeing the capital through new eyes during the unprecedented coronavirus lockdown.

One year ago, Extinction Rebellion activists (myself included) occupied several sites in central London, bringing traffic to a halt, in an environmental precursor to what the collapse of “business as usual” looks like under the coronavirus lockdown. How can we make sure that, as the crisis passes, we don’t simply return to the suicidally irresponsible culture that existed until just a month ago, which was speeding us towards environmental destruction.

Here’s my latest quarterly fundraiser. As an independent journalist and activist, I’m dependent on the support of my readers to enable me to keep writing about Guantánamo, and working to get the prison closed, and also to support my ongoing photo-journalism project ‘The State of London.’ I hope that you can help!

Marking 1,000 days since I began posting a photo a day on Facebook, on a page entitled, ‘The State of London’, drawing from what is now a nearly eight-year archive of photos taken on bike rides around London’s 120 postcodes, in which I record the latest upheavals and changes in the life of this great city, particularly involving the depredations of the housing development industry, the city’s shopfronts and neighbourhoods, its nature, via rivers, canals, trees, parks and hills, and its more ephemeral aspects as reflected in the changing weather and the seasons.

Every three months I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support my ongoing work on Guantánamo, and my ongoing photo-journalism project ‘The State of London.’ Thanks for your support!

Twenty-four photos I took during the two-month occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, from August 28 to October 28, 2018, which I was part of, before we were violently evicted on October 29. Also included: a re-cap of the reasons for the occupation, and the shameful behaviour of Lewisham Council and Peabody, and the thugs they hired to show their power.