You looking at Me?

When I was in London a few weeks ago I covered a lot of ground. So far I’ve only posted images from the Charing Cross area – click here and here for examples. Prior to that I was in the Knightsbridge area and shot some images of One Hyde Park. Arguably this is the single most expensive development in London with penthouses changing hands for over fifty million pounds.

From a photographic point of view I love this place. The lines are clean and precise, it’s very geometric and those are qualities that appeal to me as will be obvious from some of my previous images.

It can also feel remote and very clinical. Partly because this is another world – a world of privilege, privacy and money totally foreign to me. Slightly at odd with those concepts, the interconnecting links between the blocks are highly visible and as I shot I was conscious, occasionally, of someone moving from one of the elevators into the adjacent apartment blocks. They weren’t owners: they were security or staff or cleaners.

Finally first one man and then a second stood in the glass-fronted space and stared out. From my vantage point on the street some distance below I thought they might be communicating with each other. But what were they talking about? Could they see me? Were they watching me photographing them? It felt slightly unnerving. The extremely wealthy guard their privacy very highly. Was I regarded as an intruder although I was standing in a public place.

My shoot was finished and I vanished into the London underground.