LONDON STREET ART - Part 1/4

In the summer of 2006 Roger George Clark - the most English of photographers - returned to photography after a break of more than ten years. Inspired by the pictures produced by the American photographer Walker Evans he set out to record street art in modern London - billboards, posters, shop windows, graffiti and signs - anything that was cool and curious.

'We're surrounded,' he says, ' by iconic images - royalty, celebrities, sporting and rock heroes, movie stars - and cool brands. London is a vast open-air art gallery - sexy, stylish and fun.

'Britain's capital has never looked more affluent. But it's city under threat - a city that terrorists want to destroy. And it's changing fast.

'I wanted to record the affluent Western life-style. This is London before the fall - before the great financial crash. Here we see the delights of a modern consumer society and pop culture. In addition, I photographed people in the London streets, the fashionable and the less fortunate who sleep on the pavements.

'Although these photos were inspired by Walker Evans my work is different from his. We live in different worlds and times, but he was the jumping off point. Normally I work in black and white. But I've celebrated my return to photography with a major photo essay in colour. It signifies the enjoyment I'm having capturing modern London - the city in which I was born and where I've lived and worked all my life.

You've heard of socialist realism? ... Well, this is capitalist realism - the turbo capitalist society.

'You can see more of my colour photos in a second set of London pictures here on YouTube. If you want to see what fashioons were like twenty years earlier in the 1980s and '90s then please look at my video CHELSEA COOL. You can find other photo essays as well! And please visit my website:- rogergeorgeclark.com

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• street
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• graffiti
• signs
• sexy
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[theREALbkvaluemenu]

oh my goodness these are all cool photos!

i love 0:37 though!