Celebrating 2,400 Days of ‘The State of London’: Please Donate to Support This Unique Photo-Journalism Project
Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’.
Dear friends and supporters,
Today marks 2,400 days — or a little over six and a half years — since I first set up ‘The State of London’ Facebook page, and began posting a photo a day, with an accompanying essay, drawn from the photos I had been taking since I first began cycling around London and taking photos throughout the capital’s 120 geographic postcodes five years before — on May 11, 2012, to be precise. I also post the photos on X (formerly Twitter).
From the beginning, this has been something of a deranged hobby. I have no financial backing for the project and, as a result, am reliant on you, my readers and followers, to provide me with any kind of monetary recompense for the ridiculous amount of time that I’ve spent cycling around London with a camera over the last eleven and a half years — and, in particular, the many hours I spend researching and writing about the photos that I post to entertain and inform you about London’s history, its social housing, its takeover, in recent decades, by predatory capitalism, the changing seasons, forgotten corners, rivers, hills and canals, parks and graveyards, seats of power, poverty and protests.
In the last six months, for example, I’ve celebrated pubs and cafes, inter-war council estates, Art Deco and Brutalist triumphs, delved through the archive for coverage of lost or soon to be lost reminders of London’s history — Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross, prior to redevelopment, slipper baths in South Bermondsey, council flats in Homerton, a lodge in Archway and a prefab in Stepney Green, and have also posted about horrible new developments in Pimlico, Canary Wharf, the City, Vauxhall and Lewisham, as well as covering the massive and frequent protests against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Quarterly Fundraiser: Seeking $2500 (£2000) to Support My Guantánamo Writing and Campaigning for the Prison’s Closure, and My Photo-Journalism Project ‘The State of London’
Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.
Every three months (at the start of March, June, September and December), I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support my ongoing reader-funded work on Guantánamo — my frequent writing, my regular campaigning, my public appearances and my media appearances, all of which are generally unpaid.
If you can make a donation to support my work, please click on the “Donate” button above to make a payment via PayPal. Any amount will be gratefully received — whether it’s $500, $100, $25 or even $10 — or the equivalent in any other currency.
You can also make a recurring payment on a monthly basis by ticking the box marked, “Make this a monthly donation,” and filling in the amount you wish to donate every month. If you are able to do so, a regular, monthly donation would be greatly appreciated.
Marking 11 Years of ‘The State of London’, An Appeal for £1000 to Support My Unique Photo-Journalism Project For the Next Three Months
Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’.
Dear friends and supporters of ’The State of London’,
Every three months I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support my unique, reader-funded photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’, which has just reached 6,200 followers on Facebook, and has over 1,550 followers on Twitter. As I have no institutional backing whatsoever, I’m entirely dependent on your generosity to enable me to continue this project, which takes up a considerable amount of otherwise entirely unpaid time.
If you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to make a payment via PayPal. Any amount will be gratefully received — whether it’s £10, £20, £50 or more!
You can also make a recurring payment on a monthly basis by ticking the box marked, “Make this a monthly donation,” and filling in the amount you wish to donate every month. If you are able to do so, a regular, monthly donation would be very much appreciated.
Quarterly Fundraiser: Seeking £1,000 For ‘The State of London’, My Unique Reader-Funded Photo-Journalism Project
Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’.
Dear friends and supporters of ’The State of London’,
Every three months I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support my unique, reader-funded photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’, which over 6,000 of you follow on Facebook — and nearly 1,500 on Twitter.
Long ago, in the mists of time, when David Cameron’s Tories had only been in power for two years, Brexit hadn’t even been conceived, and London was gearing up for the jingoistic orgy of nationalism that was the 2012 Olympics, I set out on my bike, with a little point-and-shoot Canon camera, to record the changing face of London.
That was in May 2012, and five years later I began posting a photo a day from my archive, and from the photos I was still taking on a daily basis, on ‘The State of London’ Facebook page, along with accompanying essays — about cynical council estate demolitions, the proliferation of new high-rise office blocks in the City and Canary Wharf, as well as photos taken on the sometimes long distance journeys that I undertook through London’s 120 geographical postcodes.
Quarterly Fundraiser: Seeking £1,000 to Support ‘The State of London’, My Unique Photo-Journalism Project
Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’.
Dear friends and supporters,
Ten and a half years ago, at the comparatively youthful age of 48, I set out on my bike, armed with a small point-and-shoot Canon camera, on an ambitious mission to photograph the whole of London — or, more specifically, the 120 geographic postcodes that make up the 241 square miles of the London postal district.
3,839 days later, I’m now close to my 60th birthday, I’ve cycled tens of thousands of miles and taken tens of thousands of photos, as well as getting through two bikes and four cameras — with the most recent of these, a Canon PowerShot G7 X Mk. II, having transformed my photography since I first bought it nearly four years ago.
For the last five and a half years, my ambitious mission to record the changing face of the capital has manifested itself as ‘The State of London’, a unique photo-journalism project on Facebook (and Twitter), which involves me posting a photo from these journeys every two days, along with a detailed accompanying essay (I used to post a photo and essay every day until July this year, when I finally realised that the daily schedule had become too arduous).
Celebrating 2,000 Days of ‘The State of London’, My Unique Photo-Journalism Project
Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my reader-funded photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’, as it reaches its 2,000th day.
I’m delighted to report that today marks 2,000 days since I first began posting a photo a day taken on bike rides through the 241 square miles the capital’s 120 geographical postcodes — plus an accompanying essay — on my Facebook page ‘The State of London.’ I launched the Facebook page on the 5th anniversary of when I first set out consciously on my bike to capture my perceptions of London with a small point-and-shoot camera, on May 11, 2012 — and for anyone interested in that longer timescale, today actually marks 3,826 days since the project began, which has involved me getting through two bikes and four cameras (ending up with the wonderful Canon PowerShot G7 X Mk. II, which I’ve had for nearly the last four years, and going from looking at my 50th birthday approaching to reflecting on my imminent 60th.
I’m grateful to my 5,800 followers — and 1,350 followers on Twitter — plus the many more people who take an interest in the project without officially ‘following’ it.
There are, of course, many pages and websites out there that feature photos of London, but to the best of my knowledge there’s nothing like ‘The State of London’, which is very specifically a photo-journalism project. I endeavour to make the photos memorable in their own right, but they are rarely the kind of images you’d find wooing tourists, or emblazoned on a canvas print in a populist art shop — and, moreover, the photos are always accompanied by detailed essays providing a wealth of context, historical background and commentary.
Quarterly Fundraiser: Seeking £1000 to Support my Photo-Journalism Project ‘The State of London’
Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’.
Dear friends and supporters,
Every three months, I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support my ongoing photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’, an entirely reader-funded endeavour, in which, for the last five years and three months, I’ve been posting a photo a day, plus an accompanying essay, drawn from the photos I’ve been taking on daily bike rides throughout the capital for the last ten years.
If you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to make a payment via PayPal. Any amount will be gratefully received — whether it’s £5, £10, £20 or more!
You can also make a recurring payment on a monthly basis by ticking the box marked, “Make this a monthly donation,” and filling in the amount you wish to donate every month. If you are able to do so, a regular, monthly donation would be very much appreciated.
The donation page is set to dollars, because my PayPal page also covers donations to support my ongoing work to secure the closure of US prison at Guantánamo Bay, and many of those supporters are based in the US, but PayPal will convert any amount you wish to pay from any other currency — and you don’t have to have a PayPal account to make a donation.
A Fundraiser Marking the 10th Anniversary of My Photo-Journalism Project ‘The State of London’
Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’.
Ten years ago today, on May 11, 2012, I set out on my bike, with a little Canon camera that my wife had bought me for Christmas, to record the ever-changing landscape of London in photographs, intending to visit and take photos in all 120 postcodes of the London Postal District (those beginning with WC, EC, E N, NW, SE, SW and W), which covers 241 square miles. It took me two and a half years to visit every postcode at least once, and rather longer to find the camera that particularly suited the requirements of the project. In February 2019, after a number of upgrades, I ended up with the camera I still have, a Canon PowerShot G7X Mk. II, and if I have one regret about this project, it’s that I didn’t buy it sooner.
Back in May 2012, I had no idea where this journey would take me, but ten years later it has become a running commentary on the best and the worst of this sprawling, infuriating and sometimes inspiring city that has been my home for the last 37 years.
Exactly five years after I first embarked on this photographic project, on May 11, 2017, I set up the Facebook page ‘The State of London’ to post a photo a day, with an accompanying essay, from these journeys, where I have now posted nearly 1,800 photos and essays, and where, I’m delighted to report, the project now has over 5,000 likes and over 5,400 followers. I also post the daily photos on Twitter, where the page has over 1,250 followers.
Quarterly Fundraiser for ‘The State of London’; Hoping to Raise £1,000 to Support My Ongoing Photo-Journalism Project
Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’.
Dear friends and supporters,
Every three months I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support ‘The State of London’, my reader-funded photo-journalism project, for which I have no institutional backing whatsoever.
It’s now nine years and nine months since I first set out on my bike to record the changing face of London in daily photographs, and four years and nine months since I first began posting a photo a day — with an accompanying essay — on Facebook, and I’m thrilled that the project now has nearly 5,200 followers, and that so many of you clearly enjoying seeing the photos everyday, and reading the accompanying essays.
I hope, however, that you don’t mind me pointing out that, although it’s free to view and read, ‘The State of London’ is a significant daily undertaking on my part, via my bike journeys, the research I undertake for each photo chosen, sharing on social media, and responding to everyone’s comments, and even if I were to raise £1,000 it would only work out at slightly over £10 a day — way below the minimum wage!
Celebrating 1700 Days of my Photo-Journalism Project ‘The State of London’
If you can, please support ‘The State of London’, which is an entirely reader-supported project, with a donation. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.
Today marks 1,700 days since I first began posting a photo a day — plus accompanying essays — on ‘The State of London’ Facebook page; photos that were either taken on the day, or were drawn from the photos I’d started taking on bike rides throughout London’s 120 postcodes five years earlier. For anyone keeping count, that means that it’s now 3,526 days since I first set out on my bike to capture the changing face of London.
In the last 1,700 days, my ability to take photos has, I think, improved in general (largely because of the upgrade to my current camera, a Canon PowerShot G7 X Mk. II, in February 2019), and I have also, increasingly, devoted much more time to the essays that accompany each photo. I’m gratified to see that the project has steadily been gaining support, so that I recently welcomed my 5,000th follower.
As I have delved deeper into London’s history on my journeys, and in the research for the photos, I have come to recognize how resilient London is as a city, despite having lost so much in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and in the German bombing raids in World War II. Nevertheless, as I realized as soon as I began the project in May 2012, it has also recently been invaded, not by fire, or by a wartime enemy, but by predatory transnational capital, building huge new towers of offices in the City of London, and high-rise residential towers in Canary Wharf and in numerous former industrial sites across the capital (the Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area, for example), all eagerly facilitated by conniving politicians and generally supine architects.
Who's still at Guantánamo?
