Old Vs New

N, S, E, W

Looking back at my photographs from last week I had noticed how Aldgate East, which I like to call our disorganised city, is a very adventurous place. From the buildings and architecture, to the rush of people, to the deliveries and the messy streets, nothing is really in order. The buildings stand in a disorganised way, old next to new, old behind new, old above new etc.

I noticed a N,S,E,W theme within my photographs which I wanted to express visually by editing my images and taking the colour away from the old buildings to create a mix of old vs new. This gives each image a collage look ,without changing or moving the buildings.

I wanted to keep the surrounding objects in colour, to show how we are in the present, near to the date which the photographs were taken. This expresses how sometimes people may dismiss the beautiful architecture and not focus on how London is changing at such a fast pace. I created these images to communicate just how quickly things can change. Old buildings in this area are being knocked down and brand new luxury apartment blocks and offices now stand in their place. It’s sad to see London’s history fade.

Here are some of my pieces. 

The Shadows Collaboration

For our final, short two week brief titled THE SHADOWS we have been asked to work in a group of four and five, gathering photographs from a destination of our choice. Choosing just opposites. such as; true vs false, dark vs light, rich vs poor. 

Our group had decided on old vs new and to stay local to our University as there is much to explore in this area.

Today we met at university before making our way to our chosen destination. We grouped into a small group of 5. Hayley, Clelia, Shalini, Silvia & I decided to stay local as we found some interesting aspects of the area around us. We chose Aldgate East as our chosen destination.

Our chosen words being OLD VS NEW. 

We chose to place ourselves at the zebra crossing in the middle of the road & focus on 5 different angles. We swapped after a while focusing mainly on the buildings the rest of our surroundings. Here are a collection of image I have taken over the space of 1 hour. 

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Aldgate East doesn’t have much of an organised feel to it, old & new buildings are dotted everywhere.

The technique I used to take my photographs was to angle my phone up, towards the buildings & objects I was taking. The photograph above was an old building on the left & a new building on the right. The old building being shorter than the newer building.

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This image has been taken from the same angle of looking up, however there is a difference where the old building is higher than the new building.

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The image above has displayed the old building at the bottom of the photograph and the new building higher up behind the old one. Showing a new angle to Aldgate East. 

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Here are a collection of the rest of the photographs I had taken.  

I feel we had an adventurous hour working together to gather some interesting photographs. We are looking to put all our photographs together & to pick out the strongest images to use for our final outcomes.

I have noticed some interesting elements within my photographs and it has really made me see Aldgate East in a different light. I am pretty happy with my photographs and I am looking to work on them within the next week.

To see my final images for this project check out my second Shadows blog post Old Vs New.