Pedestrian{Photographs by Nick Lloyd

{Pedestrian

First published in 2009 by Blurbwww.blurb.com

All rights reserved© 2009

All photographs© Nick Lloyd 2009www.nicklloyd.blogspot.com

Introduction © Nick Lloyd 2009

Foreword© Dr Roger Sabin 2009

DesignDidem Ogmenwww.didemogmen.com

Dedicated to my father, James Robert Morrison Lloyd

Cities

I’,ve known London all of my life. It’

,s been the

backdrop against which all kinds of personal experiences - good and bad - have been played out for over 40 years. But whatever the emotional mood of the moment, whatever my circumstances, whether I was living or simply working there, I keep coming back, discovering different aspects to the city I’

,ve known for

so long: exploring how the landscapes have changed, how the familiar spaces have been remodelled, rebuilt, or simply torn down and cleared. This changing topography has been a continual visual and emotional touchstone, influencing and shaping my knowledge of and feelings for, this grand metropolis.

And like any major city, London is best discovered by walking. The character of the place, as long-term residents will tell, is not easily translated onto maps or absorbed by viewing it from the top deck of a red London bus, or the back seat of a black taxicab.

London,’s streets, particularly in the areas

shown in this book, are best experienced individually and personally on foot at ground level: where the physicality of the streets can be felt and experienced; and where the viewer can be witness to the noises and sensations of a city in motion.

Photographs

This book is not, as will be evident on viewing the pages that follow, a literal photographic study of this great city. Neither is it intended to be a travelogue in the practical sense of the word.

The photographs featured here are of events and people taken in public spaces within the central London area. They include some of the busiest and most familiar sections of the capital as encountered daily by visitors, tourists and residents.

The photographs are not, however, intended to be an analytical look at life in a big city or a comprehensive social document of the capital. What I hope they do reflect en masse is my intent at the outset of the project: namely to create a personal view of life in London from the street during the period 2007-2009.

The point of view shown is my own with no attempt to convey a neutral or objective documentary’ aesthetic. My interest is in capturing human behaviour and visual relationships in a busy and crowded city in the raw: and to convey the energy and immediacy of a city witnessed ‘close-up’ at ground level - a sense of a familiar London that is nonetheless emotionally charged by the intensity of random events.

With this in mind, this picture book should perhaps best be viewed not as a conventional pictorial sequence of events and places, but as an exploration of the non-fiction form. A book that, in other words, uses photography as a narrative form to explore the idea of London in the early years of the 21st century.

The layout of this book, shaped and directed by the designs of my friend Didem Ogmen, were the result of a collaboration of equal parts - in which words, photographs and designs allow the subject of the book to be fully expressed.

We hope you enjoy the pages that follow.

Nick LloydJuly 2009

â

!

Foreword

Pedestrian.’ It,’s not an eyeball-grabbing title for

a book, is it. Pedestrian, as in dull. Pedestrian as in lacking in vitality, imagination, distinction, etc. Pedestrian as in commonplace. If the book had been published by a mainstream press you can bet there woul’d have been pressure from the publisher to change the word –and fast.

Yet, it,’s perfect. The book is by a committed

pedestrian (Nick Lloyd) and features photos of other pedestrians as they go about their daily business. Walking is key to the emphasis on ‘unconventional’ and less well-–explored locations, as well as to the process of capturing individuals ‘in the raw’, as Lloydwould have it. This is walking as a creative practice –and as a way of life.

On one level this approach connects with psychogeography. The term derives from the French Situationists in the 1950

,s, who

celebrated the notion of the ‘derive’, in which the lone walker would stroll in spontaneous fashion through the city, experiencing its richness anew - freed from the need to ‘use’ it (i.e. freed from the need to behave as a worker or consumer). This political dimension to the act of walking has been re-considered down the years by serious psychogeographers, and some argue it can be traced to the 19th century notion of the flaneur (Charles Baudelaire’s ‘saunterer of the streets’), but the central idea remains the same: that by travelling by foot you can extract yourself spiritually from the pressures to conform to the codes of urban living.

So far, so theoretical. The problem is that, often, art inspired by psychogeography has emphasised place over people. Such paintings, videos, photographs, etc. attempt to express the way the physical world and the mind intersect to generate experience, but oftenend up being cold representations of emptycity environments. In Lloyd’

,s work, however, the

people are very much present. They are located in that environment, and although they may not always look happy about it, caught in sheeting rain, or frowning on their way to another day in the office, their humanity is a central concern. True, they appear as if glimpsed from the corner of an eye –off-centre, sometimes blurry. But Lloyd is not interested in street portraits. He’

,s especially not interested in ‘mugging’

passers-by in the manner of Joel Meyerowitz or Bruce Gilden. What would be the point? (One startled expression fits all.) Instead, his secret camera seeks to find a moment that is both an interpretation of the city and of the person. Susan Sontag wrote in On Photography (1977) that since the invention of portable cameras, photography has been the natural artform of the flaneur: Lloyd has gone a step further to show that psychogeography can become a meditative practice.

And with a bit of imagination on the part of the viewer, the photos become something else. Perhaps a science fiction story: the young man with the iPod earphone, a cyborg in black, set against the futuristic shapes of a decaying technological metropolis. Perhaps a

romantic drama: the man in the glasses looks worried - he can

,’t make a u-turn and the clouds

are gathering. Perhaps a social comment: the woman, old as Methuselah but probably only 60, being helped across the road in the shadow of cranes, withered by all the remaking of the city she has seen.

Pedestrian? Think again.

Dr Roger SabinReader in Popular Culture

Central Saint MartinsCollege of Art and Design

About

Nick Lloyd was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.

He graduated from Portsmouth Polytechnicin 1985 with a B.A. (Hons) in Fine Art,majoring in photography and film studies.

His first book ‘‘‘‘‘;"New Zealand Photographic Images"’ was published by Tuatara Press in Auckland in 1990 and featured work by Nick Lloyd and New Zealand photographers including Ans Westra and Glen Jowitt.

"Pedestrian’" is the first monograph of Nick

,’s work.

www.nicklloyd.blogspot.com

Didem Ogmen is a freelance graphic designer based in London who works mainly on publication, web and identity projects. She graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design with a BA in Graphic Design after studying Advertising at Bilgi University in Istanbul.

www.didemogmen.com

Acknowledgements

Since graduating from Portsmouth, I,’ve met

a number of artists and photographers who have helped and encouraged me in my work.I’ would like to make special mention of the

following individuals: Andrew Bullas: Paul Caponigro: the late Peter Goldfield (who helped open doors for so many photographers in the UK): Martin Parr and Ans Westra.

I’ would also like to thank the following, who

have helped influence in various ways the book you now hold in your hands: Ian Baker: Geoff Crook: Graham Finch: Karen Fletcher: Jon Garlick: Stuart Kenworthy: Bill Maine: Didem Ogmen: John Pettitt: A.L. Rees: Roger Sabin: John B. Turner: MarketaUhlirova: Juliana Wang and Igho Wekpe.

Lastly, I’ would like to publicly thank my

partner Anita. Her unqualified support and encouragement for my work has made thisbook possible.