Start of Term 2

Well, the new term (term 2) has now in full swing. And our major project this term will be for all of us students to document the urban redevelopment project which is underway at Elephant & Castle where the college is based. Essentially, the regeneration project aims to dismantle the Heygate housing estate, as well as the Elephant & Castle shopping centre.

LCC aims to document this project on a long-term basis and our class will be the third generation of photojournalists and documentary photographers to archive and photograph this urban regeneration project. The overriding theme this year is ‘community’.

After I have seen that a hotel (London Park Hotel) will be included in the project, my initial thoughts were to photograph the abandoned hotel. After all I have spent a good part of my life in hotels. And hotels are about ‘communities’ and communities leave some sort of traces behind. And this community is vanishing since the hotel will be demolished quite soon. After my last project, which was a more people-based reportage project I would also like to undertake a project that is devoid of people. I would also like to use a larger format (a medium format or even large format camera) for this project to get the extra quality and detail necessary for such a project. At the end of the day, this is also about experimenting and learning.

The more I think about this and structure my thoughts, the more I am getting excited about this project. I will do some more in-depth research this weekend and have a good walk around the area to come up with a more cogent project proposal.